What Higher Ed's Cloud Storage Data Is Really Telling Us: 2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index

The 2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index offers a detailed examination of cloud storage practices and challenges specifically within the higher education landscape. Based on a survey of 241 IT decision-makers in the education sector, the report uncovers several key areas of concern. A primary issue identified is the disproportionate allocation of cloud storage budgets. The study found that a substantial 54% of spending in higher education goes towards various fees, such as egress, API calls, and retrieval charges, rather than directly funding storage capacity itself. This figure is notably higher than the global average of 50% and represents a concerning upward trend, having increased from 50% in 2025 and 49% in 2024. This consistent rise in fee-related costs places significant strain on the often-fixed annual budgets of educational institutions, which are not designed to absorb such unpredictable and escalating expenses. Beyond the financial burden, the index highlights a pervasive "dark data" problem. This refers to the vast amounts of data collected and stored by institutions that remain unused and unanalyzed. The proliferation of AI technologies has made addressing this issue more urgent, as dark data represents both a missed opportunity for insights and a considerable security vulnerability. The report also critically assesses the current state of data security within higher education, concluding that existing security postures are insufficient to counter the evolving landscape of cyber threats. The security findings are particularly stark. A significant 44% of higher education respondents reported experiencing a cyberattack that resulted in the loss of access to their public cloud data. Furthermore, only 47% expressed complete confidence in their ability to maintain data operational and unaltered after another such incident. The report attributes these vulnerabilities, in part, to the complex and often decentralized IT environments typical of higher education, characterized by intricate identity systems, frequent user turnover, and inconsistent enforcement of multi-factor authentication (MFA). These factors contribute to longer threat actor dwell times, meaning attackers often go undetected for extended periods within these systems. While there has been an encouraging increase in immutability adoption, with 63% of education respondents now using Object Lock, the confidence gap in data resilience remains substantial.