Signal Check / Higher Ed / Issue 01 / October 2026
Fall 2025 enrollment growth and continued educational construction spending offer useful context for campus wireless planning. This issue looks at where connectivity demand is concentrated, why distributed antenna system (DAS) funding assumptions need early attention, and what campus teams can check now.
The Campus Scoreboard
Undergraduate Enrollment, United States
+1.2%
16.2 million undergraduates
Fall 2025. Community college enrollment grew 3.0%.
U.S. Educational Construction Spending
$137.5B
Seasonally adjusted annual rate
August 2026. Includes K-12 and higher education construction.
Enrollment grew in fall 2025, with community colleges seeing the fastest growth. Every new student brings devices into the same campus buildings. Start by reviewing high-demand spaces such as lecture halls, libraries, and student centers.
Educational construction spending was nearly flat in August 2026, down approximately 0.05% from July. Campus construction and renovation projects are opportunities to plan cabling, equipment space, and antennas before walls and ceilings are closed.
What CTS Is Seeing in the Field
Campus DAS projects increasingly require owner investment
Carrier-funded in-building cellular varies by venue, market, and carrier priorities. Colleges and mid-sized universities may need to fund their own DAS infrastructure rather than rely on carrier-funded deployments.
Skyline College, part of the San Mateo County Community College District, faced this challenge when carriers did not fund its in-building project. CTS helped the college deploy a modern DAS to improve indoor 4G and 5G coverage.
Why this matters for your campus: Confirm carrier participation and funding assumptions early. Establish the business case before your next capital planning cycle.
Campus Wireless Checklist
Three Campus Connectivity Checks to Prioritize
- Walk basements, stairwells, tunnels, elevators, and parking structures and note where a cellular call drops.
- Confirm reliable cellular coverage at the college stadium and event spaces at full capacity, not only when a venue is empty.
- Test mobile connectivity at building entrances and key indoor-to-outdoor transition areas.
For a broader campus-wide assessment, use the Connected Campus Planning Checklist.
Ask a CTS Engineer
If our campus already has Wi-Fi, why do we need in-building cellular?
Wi-Fi connects students, faculty, and staff to campus networks and the internet. In-building cellular supports calls, texts, and mobile data through their wireless carriers. When outdoor cellular signals struggle to reach classrooms, libraries, residence halls, and other indoor spaces, a commercial DAS can improve coverage. It can also support high-demand environments such as stadiums and student centers. Planning both networks together helps campuses identify gaps and coordinate infrastructure investments.
For more on matching wireless infrastructure to different campus requirements, see CTS's Campus Wireless Strategy.
