Public higher education systems have relied upon the ability to control individual campuses for the overall welfare of the public which it serves. This coordination and control has the potential to increase efficiencies of efforts, but also has the potential to limit the growth of individual campuses. The current study was designed to identify, explain, and understand the perceived benefits and challenges of higher education systems. Study findings identified a higher level of agreement about the challenges present in systems use, and the strongest benefit perceived of using a systems approach was for group buying power.