Building Stability Through Insight, Flexibility and Smart Innovation in 2026

As 2025 comes to a close, universities and colleges around the world are reflecting on a year that asked them to balance uncertainty with progress. Many of the trends we predicted at the start of the year - heightened competition for students, rising digital expectations, tighter budgets, and the growing influence of AI - shaped how institutions delivered learning, managed operations, and planned for the future.

The sector continued to transition toward more flexible learning models, more data-informed decision making, and more intentional investment in digital infrastructure. While 2025 presented its challenges, with many programs and staff losses across the globe, it was also a defining moment in higher education, as more and more institutions are taking significant steps to become more financially sustainable.

Institutions worldwide will continue navigating a complex environment marked by financial pressure, shifting demographics, and ongoing global uncertainty. The expectation remains the same: find efficiencies, strengthen value propositions, and ensure that every learner, regardless of background, device, or location, has the support they need to succeed.

Key trends for 2026

Understanding the whole institution

In this challenging environment, institutional survival depends on comprehensive self-knowledge. Leaders must know their institution "as the back of their hand," examining every nook and cranny to understand operations, student success, learning engagement, and all areas of university life.

Data will prove to be the sector's best ally, critical for uncovering areas suitable for optimization, reduction, or removal. Gathering, interpreting, and actioning data insights - whether concerning operations, student engagement, teaching and learning, or student success - will be key to institutional survival. These practical requirements will be fundamental in gaining efficiency, political capital, and making well informed decisions in times of change.

The need for bold, proactive change

While institutions still have quite a lot of "low hanging fruit" to make incremental improvements, this is the year when a gear shift is expected: moving from reactive to proactive and from retrospective analysis toward looking forward and preparing for the next generation of students. Core future-proofing principles include sustainability, scalability, being device agnostic, adaptable, agile, and flexible.

Flexibility is the name of the game

To successfully attract more students and increase revenue, universities must think creatively about their delivery models. This involves increasing online and hybrid education options and offering better access to essential resources, including course content, learning platforms, and software.

Servicing the diverse student landscape

The need to service all students and offer them the means to succeed remains a top priority for universities. With enrolment numbers declining, institutions should dedicate efforts to retain the students they currently have and support them through graduation and success beyond HE. This obligation means servicing a diverse landscape that includes various devices, access barriers, and skill levels. Furthermore, the coming wave of students, Generation Alpha, has high expectations, with 92% to 96% anticipating that their devices will be provided by the university.

The digital backbone: technology, security, and cloud

Technology is the foundation for everything in modern HE. Digital experiences are key to engaging the current and next generation of students. Learning increasingly occurs through devices, both on and off campus, with a growing reliance on AI to enhance learning. Students now expect seamless online-to-offline transitions as part of their everyday university experience, just as they do in their private life.

While digital adoption is accelerating, security and compliance remain paramount. As universities become more open to new technologies and AI, their firewalls become more exposed. AI is now utilized not just for defence, but also for attack. Without guardrails for AI, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, managing shadow IT and a secure infrastructure, institutions should anticipate more disruption in the future. Students, more than ever, value their privacy and security, and require transparency on how their data and devices are being protected.

A major shift in infrastructure is occurring via cloud computing. Gartner forecasts that by 2028, 75% of IT installations in HE will be managed through cloud-based services and solutions. This transition provides better data and analytics (often baked into third-party agreements) and offers greater capacity to manage increased workloads, a necessary capability given expected staff cuts and restructures. Cloud computing also makes it easier for institutions to take advantage of the latest innovations and updates from their solution providers, with clear implications for security and efficiency.

But not all cloud computing solutions are built the same, and the challenge for the sector here is to be strategic in their adoption, as costs can quickly escalate, and become more of a problem. Solutions that are tailored to higher education, offer flexibility of consumption, and future-proof institutions will be key to the next phase of transformation.

These trends align closely with the 2026 Educause Top 10 priorities and other industry trends across the world.

Strategic steps for 2026: maximizing assets and investing in data

Here are our top recommendations for strategic action in 2026:

1. Understand and maximize existing assets: Institutions must first understand what technology and infrastructure they currently possess and how to optimize them, with further enhancements.
2. Invest in data and analytics: It is vital to invest in data and analytics to clearly understand existing operational and performance gaps Expects like AppsAnywhere and LabStats are well positioned to work with institutions to effectively plug these gaps. There needs to be a balance between long term strategic perspectives, and immediate actionable insights that can translate into real value and efficiency.
3. Take a clean slate approach: For areas poised to deliver the most significant impact, leaders should take a clean slate approach: envisioning what they would build if money, time, and resources were unlimited, and then working backward from that ideal vision. Asking “What would we build today?” in areas such as digital access, software delivery, or hybrid learning often leads to smart, strategic enhancements. This may also uncover the need for new skills and roles to help facilitate new approaches.
4. Think long-term and student first: Strategies focused on immediate action and long-term sustainability and resilience, with the student experience as a key priority will fare best. Institutions that anticipate change, prepare for the unexpected and become agile will thrive. Investing in understanding student needs and circumstances, meeting them where they are, and enabling better and easier engagement, will lead to better student outcomes. The importance of access and equity remains a top priority, especially as enrolment and international mobility are on the fall.
5. Stay informed: Sharing knowledge and experience not only around new technologies and trends, but on solving common problems, will grow in importance. Collaboration and connection across the sector and with vendors and external partners will help in navigating this challenging time. The Educause top 10 for 2026 also highlights this as central to success, especially as technology advances at incredible pace – new devices, operating systems, changes in VDI pricing, AI, and more – while budgets for Learning and Development are being cut. The vendors that are truly committed to HE, will support the sector to grow together, and create opportunities for learning. For instance, AppsAnywhere’s SUMMIT events, online communities, forum and academy are bringing the great places to learn and share resources.

While the broader environment remains uncertain, higher education enters 2026 with a stronger foundation of digital progress, a clearer understanding of student needs, and a growing emphasis on data-driven decision making.

To thrive, institutions will need to build steadily, adapt thoughtfully, and embrace innovation in measured, meaningful ways, creating more connected, flexible, and supportive environments for all their learners.

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