5 Pressures Reshaping IT in Higher Education

Higher education IT has never had to move faster under tighter constraints or do more with less. Cyber threats are multiplying. Budgets are shrinking. AI workloads are exploding. And video surveillance is consuming storage like never before.

Each of these forces brings its own challenges. Together, they’re stretching IT teams to the limit. The real test isn’t just keeping the lights on; it’s protecting data, managing costs, and keeping innovation moving when every system is under pressure.

That reality is driving a rethink of how colleges manage data, security, and infrastructure. In the new eBook from Dell and Wasabi, we dig into five areas where that pressure is hitting hardest and how institutions are finding ways to stay secure, scalable, and cost-stable through it all.

Here’s a preview of our findings around what’s shaping higher ed IT today:

1.    Budget uncertainty: doing more with less

Few sectors juggle financial pressure like higher ed. Shrinking state funding, shifting enrollment, and unpredictable grants leave IT teams trying to modernize with yesterday’s dollars. Tuition dips and delayed funding often mean tough calls: upgrade storage, or hold the line another year? Hidden hyperscaler costs make it almost impossible to plan with confidence. When budgets tighten, innovation slows, and the ripple effect hits everything from cybersecurity to research. More schools are turning to hybrid models that balance on-campus performance with cloud flexibility.

2.    Cybersecurity: protecting what matters most

Higher education has become a hacker’s dream target. In 2024, 66% of colleges and universities were hit by ransomware, according to Sophos. One breach can do more than leak data; it can shut down classes, freeze research, and rattle an entire campus. The challenge is that enterprise-grade protection demands resources most institutions just don’t have. Immutability, replication, and fast recovery are often locked behind complex systems or unpredictable cloud fees. When you’re paying extra just to test backups, “resilience” starts to sound like a luxury.

3.    AI and data-intensive workloads: innovation without limits

AI is rewriting the playbook for higher education. It’s fueling breakthroughs in everything from genome sequencing to climate modeling, but it’s also devouring storage, bandwidth, and compute faster than most campuses can keep up. According to EdTech Magazine, three-quarters of universities are already using AI, but most don’t feel ready for what it demands. The result is overloaded systems, delayed discoveries, and rising costs as data bounces between clouds.

4.    Managing research data: the cold storage problem

Research data might live in archives, but it’s never really “cold.” From lab results and field recordings to grant submissions and compliance files, universities are sitting on mountains of data that need to stay secure and instantly accessible. Our 2025 Cloud Storage Index found that 89% of higher-ed institutions access archived data at least once a month, and nearly a third said slow retrievals have directly disrupted their work. Every time someone digs into those archives on a traditional cloud, the meter runs, fees pile up, and momentum stalls.

For IT leaders, the stakes go beyond budget management. When research data doubles as backup or compliance evidence, resilience and recoverability become just as critical as cost. The 3-2-1-1-0 rule (keeping multiple verified copies of data, with one immutable and offline) remains the gold standard, but hyperscale fees and complex tiering often make it tough to follow.

5.    Surveillance storage: meeting safety and compliance demands

Campus security depends on nonstop video capture, and that footage adds up fast. Higher resolutions, longer retention requirements, and tightening compliance rules mean universities are managing enormous volumes of video data. Servers fill up quickly, and every additional camera compounds the challenge. IT teams are left balancing performance, retention, and cost, all while ensuring footage is instantly available when something happens on campus.

Empowering higher ed for the future 

Higher-ed IT isn’t just evolving; it’s being stress-tested in real time. But every new pressure point is also an opportunity to build something better: infrastructure that’s more resilient, more agile, and ready for what’s next.

The campuses that come out ahead will be the ones that treat infrastructure as a catalyst for change and innovation. That means shifting the question from “How do we store more?” to “How do we protect what matters and put it to work for learning and research?”

Dell and Wasabi are partnering with colleges and universities making the pivot to protection by simplifying security, stabilizing costs, and building the kind of hybrid infrastructure that keeps progress moving. Together, we’re helping higher ed rethink what it means to be truly cyber resilient in an era of nonstop change.