Cloud Adoption in Higher Education: Weighing the Benefits and Challenges

Like virtually every other type of organization, higher education institutions can benefit from migrating to the cloud. But the higher education industry also faces some unique challenges and requirements that make the cloud a less-than-ideal fit in certain cases.

To that end, this article unpacks the pros and cons of the cloud for higher ed. We'll explain how the cloud can help higher education institutions solve some common IT challenges, as well as the potential drawbacks of moving applications and data to the cloud in this industry.

Higher Education and the Cloud: The Basics

In many respects, the use cases for public cloud platforms in the higher education industry are no different from cloud use cases in general. Colleges, universities, and other organizations involved in post-secondary education can use the cloud for such purposes as:

Source: Alamy

Benefits of the Cloud for Higher Ed

However, from the perspective of the higher ed industry, the cloud is more than just an alternative to on-prem infrastructure. The cloud can also help solve some of the unique challenges facing higher education organizations, such as the following:

Related:Software Development for the Education Sector: What Coders Need to Know

Cybersecurity risks

Cyberattacks against higher education institutions, which surged by 70% between 2022 and 2023, remain a persistent challenge for colleges and universities. This is likely due to two factors:

To be sure, simply moving to the cloud won't automatically solve the cybersecurity woes of higher education institutions. But it can help by allowing them to offload some cybersecurity responsibilities (like managing physical security risks) to cloud providers.

Staffing challenges

Offloading infrastructure management tasks to cloud providers is beneficial beyond the realm of cybersecurity.

Because higher ed organizations tend to have smaller IT departments than private companies relative to the size of their user base, they may struggle to manage all devices and applications effectively. But when they move to the cloud, cloud providers take responsibility for many aspects of infrastructure management, reducing the burden placed on in-house IT teams.

Related:Pros and Cons of IT Jobs in Education

Collaboration and remote learning

Collaboration is important in many industries, but it's especially critical in higher ed, where researchers often need to share information between geographically disparate teams. In addition, some institutions need to offer remote learning solutions that allow students to connect from anywhere.

The cloud can help in both of these respects by making it easy to host applications and data in central locations, where they are accessible no matter where users are based.

The Challenges of Cloud Computing in Higher Education

On the other hand, moving to the cloud also presents some special challenges for the higher education sector, such as:

Data security: It's not true that the cloud is inherently less secure than on-premises infrastructure. However, moving data to the cloud does mean surrendering a certain level of control and transparency. This could complicate (which is not to say prevent) compliance with certain data privacy regulations or standards that impact higher education, such as those defined in the HECA compliance matrix.

Connection challenges: Remote learning and collaboration are great in theory, but they are much less so when flaky internet connections lead to poor experiences. In this sense, moving to the cloud can become a liability, especially when institutions lack the proper performance management and monitoring solution to guarantee a great user experience.

Cost: While the cloud has the potential to save money, it can also end up being less cost-effective than on-premises infrastructure — which is a major challenge for higher education organizations that are already cash-strapped.

Migration challenges: The limited IT resources of college and university IT departments may make it challenging to plan and execute an effective cloud migration.

None of these are reasons for higher education institutions not to take advantage of the cloud. But they are potential pitfalls to weigh before replacing on-prem systems with cloud-based alternatives.

Conclusion: Should Colleges and Universities Use the Cloud?

In short, the cloud has much to offer to institutions of higher education, especially when it comes to reducing cybersecurity risks, streamlining IT processes, and promoting collaboration. But in certain cases, issues such as data privacy risks and migration hurdles may outweigh the cloud's benefits for higher ed.