2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index
Education Organizations are Losing Budget to Storage Fees, Not Data
241 education IT decision-makers across three global regions told our independent analyst team what's really driving cloud storage costs — and it isn't the storage itself. Download the full report to see trends from your peers.
Four findings every education IT leader should see
54%
of the average cloud storage bill goes to fees — not the storage itself
90%
use more than one public cloud provider for storage
37%
of education AI projects deliver positive ROI today
89%
say addressing 'dark data' is a strategic priority
WHY EDUCATION IS DIFFERENT
Tight budgets. Massive data volumes.
Hidden fees that compound both problems.
Education institutions store enormous amounts of data — research archives, lecture recordings, student records, compliance documents. Storage capacity needs are real and growing.
At the same time, budget constraints in education are tighter than in most sectors. Hidden cloud storage fees hit hard, and overruns aren't easy to absorb. Over 40% of respondents reported exceeding their cloud storage budgets in 2025.
41%
of education organizations exceeded their cloud storage budget in 2025
62%
rely on hybrid storage deployments (a mix of on premises and cloud) to support their AI workflows
67%
of AI budgets go to infrastructure, including data, storage, and compute
WHAT THE REPORT COVERS
Demystifying education cloud storage costs
Fees—not storage capacity— are the primary culprit for cloud storage budget overruns. On average, 54% of an education organization’s cloud storage bill goes to storage-related fees, like API calls, egress, data retrieval, and replication requests. Only 46% of the bill covers actual storage capacity. That split has remained consistent for 4 consecutive years. The full report breaks down exactly which fees are hitting hardest and what the year-over-year trend looks like.
Nearly half, with 41% of education respondents saying they exceeded their budgeted spending for cloud storage in 2025. Among those who went over, 89% identified fees as a contributing factor, including higher-than-expected data operation fees and API call fees cited most frequently. Download the report for the full breakdown of what drove those overruns.
Multicloud is the norm, with 90% of education respondents reporting they use more than one public cloud service provider for storage. The top reasons include application availability requirements, access to a wider range of regions, and the ability to use different performance tiers across workloads. The report also covers why 62% of education organizations run hybrid storage environments specifically to support AI workflows.
Only 37% of respondents report positive returns on AI projects, indicating that the majority of educational institutions are not yet seeing returns on investment, despite 99% of respondents having AI infrastructure budgets in place. An average of 67% of those budgets currently goes to infrastructure: data, storage, and compute. The report covers where this ROI gap is arising, and what it looks like over the next 12 months.
A lot less of your data is actively in use than you think. The majority of educational institutions estimate that anywhere between 25–75% of their stored capacity is underanalyzed, underutilized, or effectively invisible, often called ‘dark data’. For AI initiatives that depend on accessible, high-quality data, this is a direct obstacle. 89% of education respondents say addressing it now is a strategic priority. The full report covers the scale of the problem and what organizations plan to do about it.
GET THE FULL REPORT
See where education cloud storage budgets are going
The full report, 2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index Education Executive Summary, adds depth to these findings with charts, year-over-year comparisons, and direct quotes from education IT decision-makers across the globe.
WHAT YOU'LL GET
Deep-dive data and context for all findings
Year-over-year fee proportion comparisons
Education-specific insights to plan your budget
Direct quotes from peer leaders across North America, EMEA, and APAC
Independent analyst research methodology
Download the report by filling out the form below.