2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10: Restoring Trust

"It is well documented that the public is losing faith in all institutions, including those in higher ed. We are in the middle of what I would describe as a concerted—though sometimes thoughtful—challenge to the purpose and value of higher education. This reality is a key contributor driving how we approach and communicate about the work we do."

—Charles Isbell, Provost, University of Wisconsin Madison

Higher education has a trust problem. It's been building for a while now. Trust in postsecondary education varies by country and seems associated with a corresponding decline in trust of "elites" and a rise in support for authoritarian leaders.^Footnote1 For example, a June 2024 Gallup poll revealed that in the past ten years, the share of Americans who are confident in higher education has dropped by 21 percentage points, from 57 percent to 36 percent. In 2024, almost as many Americans have little or no confidence in higher education (32 percent) as those who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence (36 percent).^Footnote2 The three biggest reasons survey respondents gave for their lack of confidence in higher education are poor quality or irrelevant educational content (46 percent), politicized agendas (41 percent), and cost (28 percent).

This steady decline in confidence may continue because only 31 percent of Americans believe that higher education is on a positive path, while 68 percent—more than twice as many people—think it's moving in the wrong direction.

Institutional leaders are very aware of the decline, as well as the reasons behind it. They understand that higher education is unaffordable for most people, and when students and their families incur educational debt without earning a credential, they're getting negative value from their postsecondary experience. Leaders are also very aware of the importance of being able to connect degree attainment with steady, well-compensated employment. They see the way culture wars have come to campus and the damage that results.

When it comes to how they use data and technology, organizations have a trust problem too. Confidence in big tech companies is declining even faster than confidence in higher education.^Footnote3

The way organizations use data matters. Half of millennial and GenZ respondents to a 2022 McKinsey survey said they often or always consider another brand if the one that they are considering purchasing from is unclear about how it will use their data.^Footnote4 In that same survey, 58 percent of millennial and GenZ respondents reported that they make online purchases or use digital services only after making sure that the company has a reputation for protecting its customers' data. Finally, 40 percent of all respondents, including millennial and GenZ consumers, said that they had stopped doing business with a company that was not protective of customer data.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is certainly not improving people's trust in technology. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found that trust in AI companies has declined by fifteen percentage points in the last five years (from 50 percent to 35 percent) and by eight percentage points (from 61 percent to 53 percent) across all twenty-eight countries the Trust Barometer tracks.^Footnote5 Edelman Global Technology Chair Justin Westcott told Axios, "Trust is the currency of the AI era, yet, as it stands, our innovation account is dangerously overdrawn."^Footnote6 The Stevens Institute of Technology's 2024 TechPulse report found that 44 percent of its survey respondents felt that the risks associated with the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools in the workforce outweigh the benefits—an increase of six percentage points since its 2023 survey.^Footnote7 Bhaskar Chakravorti, writing about the "AI trust gap," identified twelve persistent AI risks comprising the gap, from disinformation to the black box problem to job loss and social inequities.^Footnote8

Higher education needs technology and data. Higher education needs to develop a strategy and approach to AI. Our institutions cannot realistically run without data and technology, and soon, probably, without AI. But we need to attend to constituents' skepticism about whether they can trust institutions to use data ethically, transparently, and safely.

Higher education needs to restore trust. Trust has an emotional component and a behavioral component. We trust people and organizations we believe are authentic and caring. But that's not enough. We also need to know that people, organizations, and things function well. Colleges and universities need to show that they understand and care about students, faculty, staff, and community members, AND they need to work efficiently and effectively. The job of institutional leadership is to cultivate both caring and competence and to balance the two appropriately.

Technology leaders can help. They can help advance institutional strategies that depend on technology and data to improve education, decrease costs, and reduce risks. They can help create and manage policies and processes to keep data secure and protect people's privacy. And they can help ensure technologies and technology-mediated experiences are people-centered. The 2025 EDUCAUSE Top 10 emphasizes how higher education technology and data leaders and professionals will help address higher education's great challenge: restoring trust in our sector.^Footnote9 They can help rebuild trust in three ways:

• Building the competent institution
• Fostering the caring institution
• Leveraging the fulcrum of leadership

The Competent Institution

Competence is an essential component of trust. People trust organizations and people who honor commitments and produce quality results.^Footnote10 The competence of the IT organization is on the line in 2025, as higher education technology and business leaders and professionals collaborate to retool their institutions. Institutions are investing in a new generation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, the first major overhaul since the turn of this century. IT departments are moving away from monolithic ERPs and best-of-breed strategies that are difficult to integrate to a "mesh of ERP applications, platforms, and non-ERP vendors."^Footnote11 This work won't just modernize technologies, it will also modernize processes. Business and technology leaders are committed to adapting institutional processes to new enterprise application suites. They've learned from the costly ERP decisions made two decades ago, when institutional constituents stood their ground and demanded that off-the-shelf applications be customized to reflect long-standing institutional processes—demands that didn't improve institution efficiency but rather led to costly ongoing work to maintain those customizations (issue #2).

Another focus of building institutional competence is helping people work and learn more easily and effectively by increasing personalization, automation, and agility (issue #7). Personalization customizes technology experiences for different users to ensure each person gets what they need from applications. Effective automation reduces workloads and makes errors less likely, freeing people up to do less rote work and helping to rightsize their workloads. Agility helps institutions and people adapt quickly to changing needs. More specifically, modern ERPs and enterprise architectures can be highly flexible and provide the foundation for a technological agility that supports institutional agility.

Higher education's early forays into data and analytics have produced a digital jungle—a complex, impenetrable, and even mysterious tangle of data distributed throughout the institution. This jungle needs taming to ensure that institutional investments in business intelligence and other analytics tools actually do help reduce costs, improve student success, and achieve other data-fueled objectives (issue #9).

AI is just one example of a profusion of new technologies that institutional constituents are eager to adopt. But those investments need to be thoughtful. Technology investments need to be a good fit for users and their devices, they need to be a good fit for the institution, and they need to conform with compliance requirements.

Some of the work to ensure this fit is technical: assessing data privacy, cybersecurity, and architecture fit. Some of the work, though, is political, as different stakeholders may hold opposing views about the value of a new investment or expect autonomy in their technology choices (issue #10).

#2. Administrative Simplification 
Streamlining and modernizing processes, data, and technologies

#7. Faster, Better, AND Cheaper
Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility

#9. Taming the Digital Jungle
Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness

#10. (tie) Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable
Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses

Back to Issues list

The Caring Institution

Trust in institutions stems from trust in the people at the institution, and that trust needs to be earned. Technology applications are often meant to augment or substitute for interactions with faculty or staff. But it is the people designing, deploying, and maintaining those applications—including staff and faculty—who must ensure they work as intended and help students and other users feel seen and safe.

Colleges and universities are not only focused on using technology and data to increase institutional effectiveness, they are also keenly aware of people's experiences with technology and the importance of making those experiences safe and secure (issue #4) and easy to access beyond the physical campus (issue #8).

As more applications are being developed and used to support students' interactions with the institution, the impact of those applications on student success is increasing. Student services leaders are working with technology professionals to map out and support the entire student journey as a seamless and beneficial technology-mediated experience (issue #3).

Staff are people too, and institutions are challenged to maintain adequate staffing levels and to attract and keep good staff. All staff—within and beyond IT departments—need to use data and technology in their jobs. They need to gain digital fluency to use tools safely and effectively. Training is only part of the answer. Higher education leaders and managers must build a culture around putting people first. They can do so by prioritizing staff development, creating a positive work environment, and fostering collaboration (issue #8).

#3. Smoothing the Student Journey
Using technology and data to improve and personalize student services

#4. A Matter of Trust
Advancing institutional strategies to safeguard privacy and secure institutional data

#8. Putting People First
Helping staff adapt, upskill, and thrive in an era of rapid change and ongoing digital advancements

#10. (tie) Building Bridges, Not Walls
Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection

Back to Issues list

The Fulcrum of Leadership

Building an institution that is both competent and caring is a balancing act. Increased institutional efficiency and effectiveness may come at the expense of student support, staffing levels, or benefits. Investing in student and staff outcomes and well-being may cause institutional expenses to outpace revenues. This is the challenge of leadership: to balance competence and caring and to recognize that the best outcome for the institution is to maintain that balance.

Balance is not an end state that can be achieved once and for all. Balance may look stationary, but it's actually quite dynamic, involving an ongoing series of small adjustments and decisions. The alternative is losing balance, and when balance is lost, a bigger effort is required to recover it. Leaders must be the fulcrum of the institution, applying the minimum effort or resources necessary to achieve the right balance of caring and competence to advance the institutional mission and vision. They must be able to make good decisions, invest wisely in technology, and address a growing number and range of risks.

Good decisions are essential to maintaining the right balance. A data-empowered institution is one that leverages data, analytics, and AI to help decision-makers make good decisions (issue #1).

The CIO is a central figure in the data-empowered institution and, as such, contributes to efforts to maintain a competent and caring institution. CIOs help ensure technology-fueled initiatives and services work efficiently and to constituents' satisfaction. They help discern the emergent needs of students and the institution. They work to balance institutional goals with individuals' well-being. Being a CIO is never easy, but today it is especially challenging. Unusually high turnover in institutional leadership, rapid technology advancements, dwindling institutional resources, and increased unrest all contribute to institutional instability (issue #5).

Higher education is dealing with a troubling array of risks and crises. Trust will be gained or lost based on how each institution prepares for and addresses each one. More resilient institutions will be more effective at risk management and thus better able to maintain trust (issue #6).

#1. The Data-Empowered Institution
Using data, analytics, and AI to increase student success, win the enrollment race, increase research funding, and reduce inefficiencies

#5. The CIO Challenge 
Leading digital strategy and operations in an era of frequent leadership transitions, resource limitations, societal unrest, and rapid technology advancements

#6. Institutional Resilience
Contributing to institutional efforts to prepare for and address a growing number and range of risks

Restoring trust in higher education is our big challenge for 2025. The EDUCAUSE Top 10 offers inspiration for the benefits of maintaining a competent and caring institution, advice for making progress and avoiding pitfalls, and many examples of institutional practices and projects that are helping to advance institutional competence and caring, and institutional leadership capable of balancing the two.

#1: The Data-Empowered Institution

Using data, analytics, and AI to increase student success, win the enrollment race, increase research funding, and reduce inefficiencies

Deborah Dent, James Frazee, Carrie Shumaker, and Tim Wrye

In the face of enrollment challenges and budget constraints, data-driven decision-making is becoming a critical tool for colleges and universities to increase enrollment; improve student success, financial health, and operational efficiency; and support faculty research. For some institutions, data-mediated insights could make the difference between surviving and closing. Ensuring that staff have the right skills to deliver analytics services and that both staff and leadership are equipped to use data and analytics to support decisions are critical enablers. Success hinges on data: data quality, data integration, data governance, data management, and data literacy. Institutions must also focus on data privacy and find an appropriate balance between safeguarding people's privacy and making data available to those who need it to shape services and strategy.

Go deeper on #1…

#2: Administrative Simplification

Streamlining and modernizing processes, data, and technologies

Wesley Johnson, Michele Norin, Lisa Trubitt, and Luke VanWingerden

Higher education is in the middle of adopting a new generation of modern ERP and administrative solutions. This is giving institutions the opportunity to simplify administrative work and to leverage data more easily and with more impact. Benefits of administrative simplification done well include better business operations, greater affordability, and more capacity for strategic work. Institutions that redesign business processes well will have a leg up in this work, as will institutions that can find the most effective solution partners and peers who can share their experiences. Leaders should be aware that needs and solutions are evolving faster than ever, and it will probably not take another twenty years before they need to plan for the next major overhaul.

Go deeper on #2…

#3: Smoothing the Student Journey

Using technology and data to improve and personalize student services

Nath Czechowski, Mark Johnston, Ed Kelty, and Felix Zuñiga

Student services leaders are collaborating with IT and other functional stakeholders to rethink and modernize services that can contribute to, rather than impede, students' success. Technology and data are helping faculty and staff understand and assist individual students more deeply and earlier. Doing this work well can help more students succeed, simplify transitions across institutions, and improve recruitment and admissions. Challenges include limited resources, cybersecurity and data privacy requirements, poor data management and governance, institutional culture, and misplaced priorities. Initiative leaders who find external partners to learn from and work with and know how to lay the groundwork for a major change initiative will be well positioned to succeed.

Go deeper on #3…

#4: A Matter of Trust

Advancing institutional strategies to safeguard privacy and secure institutional data

Lois Brooks, David Escalante, Marc Hoit, and Don Welch

Higher education institutions face increasing pressure to safeguard data and privacy while maintaining openness and collaboration. Framing these efforts as building trust can help regain public confidence. Protecting privacy demonstrates valuing people, while securing data demonstrates preserving community trust. Institutions must balance protection with access, focusing on critical information. Common industry standards and shared solutions can improve effectiveness and affordability. Challenges include hiring skilled staff, maturing decision-making cultures, and addressing the complexities of major research universities. A risk management approach is crucial, as is consistent training and communication. Ultimately, prioritizing trust in data privacy and security strategies can foster innovation while protecting institutional and personal interests.

Go deeper on #4…

#5: The CIO Challenge

Leading digital strategy and operations in an era of frequent leadership transitions, resource limitations, societal unrest, and rapid technology advancements

Michael Cato, Jackie Milhans, and Tracy Schroeder

The CIO role in higher education faces significant challenges amid frequent leadership transitions, resource constraints, and rapid technological advancements. CIOs must balance operational demands with strategic vision, fostering innovation while managing risks. They play a crucial role in unlocking institutional potential; contributing to issues such as campus safety, privacy, and institutional transformation; and navigating financial pressures. Success hinges on building trust, cultivating diverse talent, and promoting radical collaboration across departments. Effective CIOs contribute to institutional agility, create space for innovation, and align technology strategies with organizational goals. The evolving landscape requires adaptable leaders who can navigate complexities, letting go of perfection while leveraging institutional strengths to drive meaningful change in an increasingly dynamic environment.

Go deeper on #5…

#6: Institutional Resilience

Contributing to institutional efforts to prepare for and address a growing number and range of risks

Marc Hoit, Jackie Milhans, and Lisa Trubitt

Institutional resilience in higher education is crucial for addressing growing risks and uncertainties. Leaders must anticipate threats, develop mitigation strategies, and foster cross-institutional coordination. Technology plays a dual role, both adding to and mitigating existential threats. CIOs and CISOs can enhance student services, improve learning experiences, and contribute to cybersecurity. Key strategies include learning from minor incidents, planning for the long term, rehearsing disaster recovery plans, and developing the workforce. Institutions should embrace holistic thinking, become comfortable with ambiguity, and decentralize decision-making. Adapting to rapid changes, making swift decisions during crises, and leveraging opportunities from challenges are essential. Incremental progress and creative solutions are preferable to waiting for perfect circumstances.

Go deeper on #6…

#7: Faster, Better, AND Cheaper

Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility

Nath Czechowski, Erin DeSilva, Marc Hoit, and Luke VanWingerden

Technology and business leaders are looking to leverage technology to lower costs, improve services and outcomes, and help their institutions move faster. Personalization, automation, and agility can help. Personalization involves using data to tailor support and learning experiences, thereby enhancing student engagement and outcomes. Automating work through AI and other technologies can reduce administrative costs and streamline processes. Increasing agility by adopting flexible technologies and partnerships allows institutions to adapt quickly to changing needs. Technologies can also be managed and used to increase energy sustainability. Success in these areas depends on improving data quality and governance, developing strong vendor partnerships, and balancing cost reduction with maintaining educational and research quality. Achieving these goals also requires strategic decision-making, trust building, and a willingness to make hard choices about resource allocation and priorities.

Go deeper on #7…

#8: Putting People First

Helping staff adapt, upskill, and thrive in an era of rapid change and ongoing digital advancements

Andrea Childress, James Frazee, Brian Paige, and Don Welch

In a sector where competing on salary is tough, prioritizing people can be a strategic advantage in attracting and retaining top talent. By prioritizing staff development, creating a positive work culture, connecting staff to the institutional mission, and fostering collaboration, institutions can reap significant benefits: improved recruitment and retention of talented staff, enhanced productivity and innovation, a more engaged workforce, and a competitive advantage in attracting talent, despite potential salary limitations. Culture is the single most important element for putting people first, specifically a culture of trust in which staff feel understood, respected, and supported. The institutions that will thrive in today's challenging landscape are those that recognize their people as their most valuable asset: It's the people who will drive the transformations that higher education needs to make in the digital age.

Go deeper on #8…

#9: Taming the Digital Jungle

Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness

Kyle Bowen, Michael Cato, Jared Johnson, and Felix Zuñiga

Institutions are grappling with an ever-expanding array of digital tools and systems, creating a "digital jungle" that hampers efficiency and effectiveness. Streamlining digital infrastructure can enhance the student experience, improve institutional efficiency, and better support the core missions of teaching, research, and service. Taming the jungle isn't without challenges, including resistance to change, difficulty applying legacy governance approaches to modern needs, undervaluing the cultural and political work needed for successful transformation, disruptive changes in leadership, lack of a unifying vision, and underestimating the strategic role IT leaders need to play. The key to progress is establishing the cultural and political foundations for transformation.

Go deeper on #9…

#10 (tie): Building Bridges, Not Walls

Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection

John Augeri, Erin DeSilva, David Escalante, Christa Winqvist, and Felix Zuñiga

Colleges and universities face a dual challenge: how to increase students' access to digital resources, services, and experiences while safeguarding their privacy and protecting institutional data. Increased digital access empowers students and institutions. Students gain more control over their education and can better integrate their academic and personal lives, potentially improving completion rates. Institutions can offer more flexible learning options, including hybrid and HyFlex programs. Interoperability frameworks for data, digital access, and data protections shared across the higher education sector would be game-changing. Institutions should approach this work holistically, with a vision-driven, campus-wide strategy. IT leaders' contributions include helping shape strategy, incorporating privacy and data protections, and modernizing digital architecture.

Go deeper on #10, Building Bridges, Not Walls…

#10 (tie): Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable

Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses

Vito Forte, Mark Johnston, Michele Norin, Lisa Trubitt, and Christa Winqvist

From AI and new-age ERP systems to XR, VR, and robotics, we are in an era of astonishingly rapid technological advancement. Higher education institutions face the challenge of evaluating and implementing new technologies rapidly, carefully, and cost-effectively, all while making sure innovations support institutional priorities. A well-crafted innovation strategy can make higher education more affordable, improve experiences, boost competitiveness, and ensure proposed innovations align with sustainability goals. But change fatigue, budget constraints, and complex institutional politics pose significant hurdles. Strong, cohesive, and collaborative executive leaders who are committed to institutional values can make all the difference.

Go deeper on #10, Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable…

Reflections, Insights, and a Vision for a More Hopeful Future

Where Is the AI Issue?

AI was embedded in more than half of the 2025 Top 10 issues, from the contributions AI can make to improve decision-making and analytics (issue #1: The Data-Empowered Institution) to the importance of figuring out the role of AI in the future of work (issue #8: Putting People First) to determining how to incorporate possible AI-infused futures into the institution's vision and strategic planning (issue #10: Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable). While there was no stand-alone AI issue, the Top 10 survey did include two issues specifically about AI:

• The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive
• AI Goes to School: Tailoring AI models and tools to support student learning and advising

Neither made the overall Top 10 (The Ethics of AI was issue #11, and AI Goes to School was issue #14). But some types of institutions have a special focus on AI for 2025. One or both of these AI issues were in the top 10 for doctoral institutions with more than 8,000 FTEs, private master's institutions with fewer than 4,000 FTEs, and bachelor's institutions with 2,000–3,999 FTEs (see table 1).

In addition, survey respondents who rated AI Goes to School as more important also tended to rate another issue that didn't make the overall Top 10 as more important: Next-Gen Faculty: Helping faculty to transform education and research and scholarship in the age of AI and XR.

AI is a disruptor whose impact is not yet widespread. Institutions are still trying to figure out what AI is good for, what its risks are, and how best to integrate it into institutional operations and strategy. It will be interesting to see how AI features in future Top 10s.

Table 1. Top 10 Issues by Institutional Type

Institution Type	In Their Top 10	Dropped Out of Their Top 10
Associate's, Less than 2,000 FTE	The Flexible Campus: Managing virtual and physical spaces to sustainably optimize work and learning	Faster, Better, AND Cheaper: Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable: Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses
Associate's, 4,000–7,999	The Flexible Campus: Managing virtual and physical spaces to sustainably optimize work and learning	Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness
Bachelor's, 2,000–3,999	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive	Faster, Better, AND Cheaper: Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness
Private Master's, Less than 2,000	Digital Differentiation: Investing in digital infrastructure, services, and support to reinforce educational and research priorities and gain a competitive advantage AI Goes to School: Tailoring AI models and tools to support student learning and advising	Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable: Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses Putting People First: Helping staff adapt, upskill, and thrive in an era of rapid change and ongoing digital advancements Building Bridges, Not Walls: Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection
Private Master's, 2,000–3,999	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive AI Goes to School: Tailoring AI models and tools to support student learning and advising	Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness Building Bridges, Not Walls: Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection Faster, Better, AND Cheaper: Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility
Private Doctoral, 2,000–3,999	Digital Differentiation: Investing in digital infrastructure, services, and support to reinforce educational and research priorities and gain a competitive advantage	Putting People First: Helping staff adapt, upskill, and thrive in an era of rapid change and ongoing digital advancements
Private Doctoral, 8,000–14,999	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive AI Goes to School: Tailoring AI models and tools to support student learning and advising	Administrative Simplification: Streamlining and modernizing processes, data, and technologies Faster, Better, AND Cheaper: Using technology to personalize services, automate work, and increase agility Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness
Private Doctoral, 15,000+	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive	Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable: Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses Building Bridges, Not Walls: Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection
Public Doctoral, 8,000–14,999	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive The Flexible Campus: Managing virtual and physical spaces to sustainably optimize work and learning Digital Differentiation: Investing in digital infrastructure, services, and support to reinforce educational and research priorities and gain a competitive advantage	Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable: Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses A Matter of Trust: Advancing institutional strategies to safeguard privacy and secure institutional data Building Bridges, Not Walls: Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness
Public Doctoral, 15,000+	The Ethics of AI: Ensuring that implementations and uses of AI are equitable and inclusive Digital Differentiation: Investing in digital infrastructure, services, and support to reinforce educational and research priorities and gain a competitive advantage	Building Bridges, Not Walls: Increasing digital access for students while also safeguarding their privacy and data protection Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable: Developing an institutional strategy for new technology investments, pilots, policies, and uses Taming the Digital Jungle: Updating and unifying digital infrastructure and governance to increase institutional efficiency and effectiveness

Digital Differentiation

Table 1 also lists other issues that didn't make the overall Top 10. Some institutions are using technology and data as differentiators for teaching, learning, and research (Digital Differentiation: Investing in digital infrastructure, services, and support to reinforce educational and research priorities and gain a competitive advantage). These institutions seem to be laying the groundwork for digital differentiation in other ways too. Survey respondents who viewed digital differentiation as more important were also more likely to give high importance ratings to issue #7 (Faster, Better, AND Cheaper) and issue #10 (Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable).

A Green Agenda

As the impact of climate change becomes impossible to ignore, sustainability is becoming more important in higher education. The 2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report asserted that "Higher ed institutions are increasing their commitment to sustainability," in part by paying more attention to the environmental impact of technologies.^Footnote12 High-data and high-compute technologies like AI can be transformative, but they contribute to increased greenhouse gas emissions. This is not lost on IT leaders, and Top 10 panelists called out sustainability concerns and opportunities in two of the issues that made the Top 10 (issue #7: Faster, Better, AND Cheaper and issue #10: Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable).

You Can't Do This Alone

Collaboration is becoming essential for thriving in our sector. Higher education has always had a communicative and collegial culture, with administrators at all levels sharing with and learning from peers at other institutions. But today's challenges demand moving beyond networking. Institutional leaders must find ways to plan collaboratively, establish shared services and centers of excellence, share staff and even entire units, and adopt common frameworks, standards, and tools. For institutions at the financial brink, partnerships and collaborations might make the difference between surviving and shutting down. Collaboration—within or across institutions—was emphasized as a key enabler in more than half of this year's Top 10 (issues #1, #5, #7, #8, #9, and #10 (tie), Building Bridges, Not Walls).

The Power of Uncertainty

We live in unusually uncertain times. Change brings uncertainty, and everything seems to be changing. Climate change, AI, political instability, and other opportunities and threats are unsettling us. Uncertainty is destabilizing.

It's tempting to deal with uncertainty by trying to resolve it and find an answer and decision to every question and concern. In fact, we use technology today to do just that—to develop predictive algorithms, find concrete answers quickly, network with people who agree with us, and point us to resources that give us more of what we've already consumed.^Footnote13 But life is inherently uncertain, especially today. Trust is particularly difficult to maintain in times of instability and uncertainty. How can leaders restore trust in today's uncertain world?

From Uncertainty to Trust

Resolving uncertainties with premature answers can lead to poor choices. Uncertainty involves recognizing the limits of our knowledge, which is an essential starting point to learning and growth. In her book Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, Rebecca Solnit wrote, "Hope locates itself in the premises that we don't know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others."^Footnote14

When leaders are comfortable leaning into uncertainty, they can create a work culture that encourages collegial, respectful disagreements and use such disagreements as opportunities to find better, more innovative solutions. Such a culture can create a more competent, well-run institution and a more caring, collaborative institution.

Acknowledging and embracing uncertainty can increase trust. Solnit's concept of hope is muscular. Hope is not a passive state, looking to luck or others to bestow a positive outcome. Instead, uncertainty makes room for hope, and hope activates us. Hope is the bridge from uncertainty to trust. Hope requires some level of trust that our actions can be effective and that we live in a community that knows us and cares for us. Without that dual basis of trust—competence and caring—hope can easily curdle into disillusionment and despair.

It is up to us to face the uncertainties of today, from distrust in higher education to financial struggles to technology's disruptive potential. We will need a committed, competent workforce to find and implement innovative, creative solutions. We will need leaders who can maintain a balance between institutional competence and a caring culture. With all this, we can restore trust in higher education and shape the future.

Acknowledgments

This project is a complex undertaking that requires months of effort and involves hundreds of individuals. I am particularly grateful to the Top 10 panelists: twenty-eight technology leaders from a wide variety of colleges and universities around the world who spent several months this year working with EDUCAUSE staff to shape the Top 10 report. These dedicated people introduced us to their chancellors, presidents, provosts, and other institutional leaders so we could speak directly to them about their institutions' upcoming strategic challenges and priorities. The panelists also devoted hours to discussing ways in which technology and data could address those higher education challenges, creating the list of issues that constituted the 2025 Top 10 survey. After over five hundred EDUCAUSE members selected the Top 10 issues in a survey, our panelists helped write and review this report. It is their perspectives as practitioners that make this report relevant and actionable.

My colleagues throughout EDUCAUSE have made essential contributions to the Top 10 project. Jamie Reeves and Belle McDonald managed the project incredibly well, despite many complexities and changes. Among the many other staff who make this work feasible and fun are Karen Henry (who expertly and efficiently edited the report for the first time), Jaclyn Smith (our statistician, who provided extremely helpful summaries and detailed data resources), Nicole Muscanell (one of our researchers, who applied her expertise to programming the survey and helping with the data summaries), Zach Peil (who designed a lovely, flexible, and accessible color palette and core diagram for the report and slides), Kelli Horan (whose media skills greatly improved the quality of our video interviews with the Top 10 panelists), Connie Ferger (whose marketing experience helps ensure the report gets noticed and read), Mark McCormack (who helped supply the Data Points for each issue), and Emily Kendall (who helped manage the project while Belle was on parental leave). I love working with and have learned so much from all of you!

Notes

1. Siew Fang Law and Ai Tame Le, "A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies on Trust Between Universities and Society," Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 45, no. 4 (February 2023): 393–408; Brendan O'Malley, "UK Universities 'Face Crisis over Loss of Nation's Trust,'" University World News, February 27, 2020; Thandi Lewin, "Higher Education Faces Many Challenges in South Africa: 3 Priorities for the New Minister," The Conversation (website), July 16, 2024; Paul Gibbs and Peter Maassen, "Introduction: Trust and Higher Education," in Higher Education Dynamics, vol. 57, Trusting in Higher Education, eds. Paul Gibbs and Peter Maassen (Springer, 2021); OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions – 2024 Results, research report (OECD Publishing, 2024). Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.↩
2. Jeffrey M. Jones, "U.S. Confidence in Higher Education Now Closely Divided," Gallup News, July 8, 2024. Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.↩
3. Sean Kates, Jonathan Ladd, and Joshua A. Tucker, "How Americans' Confidence in Technology Firms Has Dropped," The Brookings Institution, June 14, 2023. Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.↩
4. Jim Boehm et al., "Why Digital Trust Truly Matters," McKinsey & Company, September 12, 2022. Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.↩
5. Richard Edelman, "Technology Industry Watch Out, Innovation at Risk," Edelman (website), March 5, 2024. The full 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer is available for download. Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.↩
6. Ina Fried, "Exclusive: Public Trust in AI Is Sinking Across the Board," Axios, March 5, 2024. Jump back to footnote 6 in the text.↩
7. 2024 TechPulse Report, research report, (Stevens Institute of Technology and Morning Consult, April 2024). When asked about the impact of generative AI tools on the workforce, the percentage of respondents who felt the benefits outweigh the risks stayed the same (31 percent) from 2023 to 2024. But the percentage of respondents who said "don't know" or "no opinion" declined from 32 percent in 2023 to 25 percent in 2024. Jump back to footnote 7 in the text.↩
8. Bhaskar Chakravorti, "AI's Trust Problem," Harvard Business Review, May 3, 2024. Jump back to footnote 8 in the text.↩
9. Once a year, members of the EDUCAUSE Top 10 Panel select a slate of 15–20 topics they believe will be the contributions that technology and data can make to the most important issues facing higher education institutions. EDUCAUSE members receive a survey with those issues and are asked to prioritize them. The ten issues with the highest-priority scores become the Top 10. This methodology also enables EDUCAUSE to determine the Top 10 among various types of institutions. For 2025, 13,828 email invitations to complete the survey were sent to EDUCAUSE members, and 501 (3.6 percent) completed the survey. Where multiple representatives from a single institution completed the survey, we selected the response from the representative in the highest-ranking position to determine the Top 10. The final Top 10 list is thus based on the responses of 332 U.S.-based respondents. Although more survey responses are always desirable, this final response rate is still within the acceptable range for a confidence level of 90 percent and a 5 percent margin of error. Jump back to footnote 9 in the text.↩
10. Paul J. Zak, "The Neuroscience of Trust," Harvard Business Review (January-February 2017), 84–90. Jump back to footnote 10 in the text.↩
11. Marlena Brown, Hype Cycle for Higher Education, 2024, Gartner, July 29, 2024. Jump back to footnote 11 in the text.↩
12. Kathe Pelletier et al., 2024 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, Teaching and Learning Edition (EDUCAUSE, 2024). Jump back to footnote 12 in the text.↩
13. Maggie Jackson, Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure, (Prometheus Books, 2023). Jump back to footnote 13 in the text.↩
14. Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, (Haymarket Books, 2016). Jump back to footnote 14 in the text.↩

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Susan Grajek is Vice President, Partnerships, Communities, and Research, for EDUCAUSE.