Novid Parsi
July 17, 2026
Higher education IT leaders are navigating pressure to move fast on artificial intelligence while keeping the mission-critical systems that the technology depends on running reliably.
Higher education IT leaders are caught in a bind. Campuses face institutional and cultural pressure to move fast on artificial intelligence and digital transformation. But that ambition collides with the reality that faculty and students still depend on core systems, such as registration, identity verification and learning platforms, that cannot afford to fail.
ListEdTech, an education market research firm, calls this dilemma “the stability paradox.”
A 2026 ListEdTech report found that the top IT investment priorities at 55 universities include data and storage, identity and access management, enterprise resource planning (ERP) modernization, and network infrastructure — all above AI. “Innovation cannot succeed without a high-functioning, stable foundation,” the report concludes.
“Institutions are trying to do two things at once,” says Justin Ménard, ListEdTech’s CEO. Higher education stakeholders, from boards to faculty to students, want to leverage new AI capabilities. But “universities still need to keep the lights on” with their mission-critical systems, he says.