This is the sixth year that EDUCAUSE has tracked the influence of major trends on the IT strategy of colleges and universities. Some trends, such as the growing complexity of security threats and artificial intelligence (AI), are rooted in technology. But we also track environmental trends—such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and lifelong learning and adult learners—that can influence institutional priorities and, in turn, technology strategy. We assessed the trends presented in this report via an EDUCAUSE survey in the summer of 2019. The influence of the trends that we studied ranged widely (see figure 1), with some affecting as many as 4 in 5 institutions and others as few as 1 in 11. To help readers focus their attention, we divide the trends into four groupings, according to the impact they are having across institutions: most influential, taking hold, worth understanding, and limited impact.

Six trends are influential at 61% or more of colleges and universities (listed below from highest to lowest level of influence):

• Growing complexity of security threats
• Student success focus/imperatives
• Data-informed decision-making
• Privacy
• Enterprise risk management
• Institution-wide data management and integrations

Sixteen trends are influential at 41–60% of institutions (listed below from highest to lowest level of influence):

• Compliance environment
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
• Simplifying administrative services and technologies
• Changing enterprise system architectures, integrations, and workflows
• IT accessibility
• Campus safety
• IT as an agent of institutional transformation and innovation
• Online and blended degree or certificate programs
• Digital transformation
• Declining enrollments
• Higher education's reputation and relevance
• Changing demographics' influence on enrollments
• Institutional innovation strategy
• Shared services
• Blending of roles and blurring of boundaries between IT and academic/administrative/research areas
• Financial uncertainty for the institution

The influence of 17 trends is limited to 21–40% of institutions (listed below from highest to lowest level of influence):

• User-centered design
• Cross-institutional partnerships and consortia
• Agile approaches to change
• External partnerships with employers, corporations, and communities
• Moving from transactional to strategic vendor-institution relationship
• Lifelong learning and adult learners
• New business models for higher education
• Evaluation of technology-based instructional innovations
• Solution providers bypassing IT to work directly with business-area leaders
• Investing in research
• Changing faculty roles (focus on advising and student success, growth in adjuncts, new methods of research and publication, etc.)
• IT frameworks
• Digital transformation of research and scholarship
• Internet of Things
• Cross-institutional and international scholarly and research collaborations
• Incorporating open standards into enterprise IT architecture
• Bimodal IT (managing two separate IT delivery modes, one focused on stability and the other on agility)

• Alternative credentialing models
• Freedom of speech
• Declining international enrollments
• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Use of algorithms to influence institutional and individual choices
• Mergers and acquisitions
• National and global political uncertainty
• Climate change
• Deregulation of higher education