Fees, Friction, and Flexibility: Cloud Data Trends for Higher Education

Higher ed IT leaders are under pressure from every direction: tight budgets, complex compliance concerns, and the challenge of managing secure access for thousands of users across campuses, departments, and devices. To better understand how these organizations are navigating cloud storage, analysts surveyed 169 IT decision-makers in education as part of our global 2025 Cloud Storage Index report.  

The findings create a clear picture that highlights how higher education is using cloud storage in real, high-stakes environments. From active archives to security-first deployments, education is a proving ground for how cloud can meet the demands of modern IT.  

These insights offer lessons for any industry balancing growth, access, security, and budget concerns.  

Why cloud storage is so critical in higher ed right now 

Educational institutions face unique IT demands. They handle massive volumes of data, from student records and administrative files to coursework content, research, and campus surveillance video footage. At the same time, they’re expected to maintain high availability, fast access, and tight security, often with lean teams and tight budgets.  

Cloud storage has become an essential part of their IT toolkit, helping education teams stay agile, secure, and ready to scale. A few core benefits of cloud storage for higher ed IT teams include: 

• The ability to centralize procurement and management of storage across departments or campuses 

• Easier collaboration and data sharing with faculty, staff, and researchers 

• Offsite and reliable backup and disaster recovery 

• Flexibility to grow without constant hardware investments 

As educational workflows shift online and hybrid learning continues to evolve, cloud storage has become a critical piece of infrastructure.  

The growth of active archiving 

Educational institutions increasingly treat their archive data as a living resource, not a dusty vault. In fact, when we analyzed the data from our global Cloud Storage Index report by industry, 89% of education respondents noted that they access their archive data at least monthly, compared to 81% globally.  

This trend reflects a shift in how higher ed institutions think about data. Whether it’s pulling footage from campus security cameras, accessing archived course material, or referencing older records for legal or compliance reasons, these institutions need archive storage that performs like primary storage, but without the high cost.  

This shift comes with a challenge: 30% of educational institutions have had business operations negatively impacted by performance or data access delays with the use of cold storage tiers—significantly more than the global average of 20%. It’s clear that educational institutions need rapid access to archived data. Further, the data among education industry respondents showed:  

• 56% accessed archived data because of security events (like ransomware or malware) 

• 50% needed to use analytics or apps on archived datasets 

• 50% had to retrieve data for regulatory or compliance reasons  

Traditional cold storage tiers just aren’t built for this level of access. Retrieval delays and fees penalize organizations for using the data they’re already paying for to store. Cold storage retrievals can take hours (or even days), with higher retrieval fees for colder tiers of service. This is especially problematic when access is unplanned or urgent, like in the case of a security issue or compliance audit. These cost structures and delays can introduce real operational and financial risks for educational institutions.  

In short, educational institutions need more from their archive storage, without the drawbacks of traditional cold storage tiers. An active archive should be:  

• Fast enough to support real-time analytics and threat response 

• Accessible without worrying about budget hits 

• Simple to manage and integrate with different systems 

Security trends  

When choosing a cloud storage provider, IT leaders in education rank disaster recovery capabilities, data durability, availability SLAs, SSO integrations, and password protection among their top security priorities. SSO, notably, doesn’t even appear in the global top four. This indicates that centralized account control is particularly valued in educational environments.  

Managing access for thousands of students, faculty, and staff across multiple systems and locations means identity management and immutability are critical in keeping highly sensitive data safe and protected. SSO helps simplify authentication, reduce password sprawl, and improve visibility into who’s accessing what.  

Beyond access management, security is critical because of how frequently schools are targeted by cybercriminals. In fact, in 2024, 63% of K-12 education and 66% of higher education organizations were hit by ransomware attacks, according to research by Sophos. This is higher than the global average, making education one of the most targeted industries.  

Yet despite prioritizing security, some tools remain underused. Less than half (49%) of educational institutions currently use object lock, a basic immutability feature that helps protect against ransomware and data tampering. While hyperscale cloud providers don’t charge for object lock, they do charge for related API request fees for setting and resetting duration periods, which can be cost-prohibitive for budget-constrained organizations. This may explain the low adoption rate of this simple feature for enhancing cyber resilience, despite IT decision-makers in education ranking disaster recovery among their top security concerns.   

It’s impossible to stay on budget with unpredictable cloud fees 

Our Cloud Storage Index report found that three out of four (76%) educational institutions exceeded their cloud storage budgets in 2024, far more than the global average of 62%. Fees are the primary reason for these budget overruns. 

A staggering 73% of respondents in the education sector said that egress and other data access fees delayed or derailed their IT or business initiatives, compared to 56% in the general population. These hidden charges, which are common among hyperscale cloud providers, make it harder to budget, scale, and deliver reliable service.  

What are all of these fees and how can you plan for them? 

Nearly half of hyperscale cloud storage bills are made up of fees, rather than actual storage capacity. These fees include:  

• Egress fees when retrieving or moving data 

• API request charges for basic actions like uploading or listing files 

• Tier-based penalties for accessing archived data 

The longer you store your data with hyperscalers, the more these hidden fees compound. Even if the pricing is affordable up front, the true cost unfolds over time, especially if an institution starts accessing its data more frequently than anticipated. In some scenarios, data egress fees alone can range from 50% to 90% of your total cost of ownership. It’s clear how quickly an organization can overspend.   

It’s challenging to plan for these charges based on the variability of research teams’ or departments’ data access needs. 

For educational institutions already working within strict funding constraints, these unpredictable costs can have a real impact on operations, slowing down innovation, interrupting data workflows, and limiting how IT teams support their users.  

What to do next: 3 takeaways for IT leaders in higher ed  

• Rethink your archive. If your cold storage is being accessed monthly or more frequently, it’s not really cold, and it shouldn’t be priced or structured that way. 

• Prioritize built-in security. Look for providers that include SSO, high durability, and immutability, without the hidden costs of such features. 

• Eliminate hidden fees. Don’t let API call penalties or egress charges limit how your team operates. 

What the education sector can teach us 

The data shows that educational institutions are spending more on cloud storage than planned. IT teams, educators, researchers, and staff are accessing  archived data significantly more often than anticipated. We also see education teams prioritizing security, especially in environments with complex, distributed user access. 

These challenges aren’t unique to education. In fact, they offer a preview of what’s ahead for many industries: more data, more users, more regulation, and more need for affordable, accessible storage that doesn’t sacrifice security or performance.  

For a better understanding of the true cost of cloud storage, including fees, delays, and long-term budget impact, download the Cloud Cost Optimization E-book. The global  2025 Cloud Storage Index Report  offers clear, data-backed insights that can help higher ed IT leaders make smarter decisions about how and where they store their data.