Abstract

Digital Twin technologies hold significant promise for advancing smart campus initiatives by enabling data-driven management of facilities, sustainability planning, and safety monitoring. Despite this potential, affordability remains a critical barrier to widespread adoption across higher education institutions. This study introduces an initial exploratory scenario-based affordability index for campus digital twin and maps the affordability of implementing campus digital twin across 1872 U.S. higher education institutions using spatial analysis techniques. Sensitivity analysis is also conducted to evaluate the robustness of the results. Our analysis yields three key findings: (1) Under the baseline scenario, most campuses show moderate-to-high affordability with spatial clusters concentrated in coastal and metropolitan regions, while nearly one-quarter remain unaffordable or marginally affordable, with clusters located in the Midwest. (2) Private institutions demonstrate relatively greater affordability than public institutions, with for-profit private institutions exhibiting higher affordability than their non-profit counterparts. Spatial aggregation patterns further reveal heterogeneity in affordability between these sectors. (3) States with strong economic and educational infrastructures, such as California, contain a greater number of affordable campuses for digital twin implementation, while resource-constrained states face significant barriers. These findings remain generally robust and consistent across the baseline and sensitivity scenarios. The results underscore the need for standardized cost models, public cost databases, targeted policy guidance, and multi-stakeholder collaboration to promote equitable adoption. By positioning digital twins as strategic tools for campus resilience, efficiency, and innovation, this study advances the conceptual understanding of their role in higher education and provides exploratory yet actionable insights for institutional leaders and policymakers to support inclusive digital transformation.

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