What is EDUCAUSE 2025?

The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference is where higher education’s technology and strategy communities come together. In 2025, it will be October 27–30 in Nashville, with a follow-up online program on November 12–13.

The theme this year is “Restoring Trust”. It reflects the crossroads higher ed finds itself in: students and families expect privacy, boards demand resilience, and faculty want technology that supports rather than disrupts. EDUCAUSE is not a trade show. It’s more of a working meeting of the sector, where new practices are tested and peers measure their own progress against each other. (EDUCAUSE’s own Top 10 IT Issues for 2025 frames this challenge as the need to prove both competence and care at the same time.)

Who Should Attend the Event?

CISOs and CIOs may be the most visible faces at EDUCAUSE, but the event runs much deeper than leadership titles. Practically, the real weight of risk and security challenges in educational facilities often falls on people in the middle layers of institutions – the ones who translate strategy into day-to-day reality.

You’ll find:

• Infrastructure architects are trying to balance uptime, cloud performance, and cost pressures without losing sight of security requirements.
• Analytics leaders being asked to show that AI-driven tools can be trusted, not just piloted. Their challenge isn’t collecting data –  it’s proving value without raising new risks.
• Procurement and vendor risk officers navigating the shift to HECVAT 4.0, managing vendors who may not be ready to meet higher standards in AI, privacy, and accessibility.
• Executives and change managers using EDUCAUSE as a checkpoint, comparing strategies against peers to see whether they’re leading, lagging, or drifting off-course.

Our Recommendations For EDUCAUSE 2025

The EDUCAUSE agenda is broad, but several threads stand out this year. AI is at the top of the list, with sessions on how it’s being deployed across classrooms and operations and what governance models are emerging. Cybersecurity remains a pillar, especially as institutions swap war stories on ransomware and third-party risk. (Ransomware attacks on universities have increased over the past two years, with some institutions paying six-figure ransoms to regain data integrity.)

The arrival of HECVAT 4.0, with its new AI, privacy, and accessibility requirements, will have its own gravity- expect dedicated workshops and hallway discussions about how to implement it without stalling procurement. And it’s worth pausing here, because HECVAT is not just a tool –  it’s an EDUCAUSE-developed framework. That connection matters: EDUCAUSE is deeply invested in it, and institutions trust it because it comes from their own community.

Here’s how version 4.0 compares with the previous framework:

HECVAT 4.0 has been described as a reset. It forces both institutions and vendors to think more seriously about AI, privacy, and accessibility, and it asks them to engage in the process more consistently. That can feel like extra work, but it’s also a healthy development. Higher ed has been asking for more transparency, more standardization, and more clarity. This version of HECVAT brings the community closer to that goal.

Three questions worth carrying with you into those sessions and hallway conversations:

1. What assumptions are other campuses making about vendor risk that we don’t?
2. How are peers managing AI governance in environments where explainability is essential?
3. Who on our campus will own the transition to HECVAT 4.0 –  and is that formally assigned?

Technology and People

One of the quieter but more important themes at EDUCAUSE is the relationship between technology and the people who use it. Tools don’t succeed on their own. They succeed when staff have the capacity to run them, when faculty see their value, and when leadership connects them to a broader institutional mission.

This is why EDUCAUSE’s Top 10 IT Issues for 2025 includes “Putting People First”. Institutions can adopt the most advanced cloud platforms or the most sophisticated AI tools, but if teams are stretched too thin or faculty buy-in isn’t there, those efforts stall. The lesson is simple but easy to overlook: technology decisions are people decisions.

For many attendees, EDUCAUSE is less about finding the next platform and more about learning how peers are aligning culture, capacity, and strategy with the tools they choose. Those are the insights that make the difference between adoption that fades and adoption that lasts.

How Can Centraleyes Help You?

EDUCAUSE will give you lots of ideas, but what happens after the event is about execution. That’s where platforms like Centraleyes connect to the themes of the conference.

The move to HECVAT 4.0 is a prime example. Centraleyes already integrates HECVAT into its workflows, giving institutions a structured way to manage vendor responses, track gaps, and compare year over year. With the new requirements around AI and privacy, the platform helps prevent the transition from becoming a paperwork bottleneck.

Centraleyes also addresses the broader challenge EDUCAUSE frames as trust. By unifying internal risk, compliance obligations, and third-party oversight into a single view, it provides the clarity that executives, boards, and regulators increasingly expect. And its dashboards help translate complex risk language into business terms- a recurring theme in EDUCAUSE sessions year after year.

One of EDUCAUSE’s other Top 10 issues for 2025 is Supportable, Sustainable, and Affordable Technology. It’s a reminder that institutions can’t simply chase every new platform or framework; they need solutions that are realistic to maintain, affordable to scale, and flexible enough to evolve. Centraleyes fits into that same conversation: its value is not just in automating today’s processes, but in making risk and compliance sustainable year after year.

The point is not to pitch tools during EDUCAUSE. The point is to show that the conference discussions- about AI governance, vendor accountability, or board-level risk reporting- can be carried forward into daily practice. Centraleyes is one way institutions make that leap.

FAQs

How many people usually attend EDUCAUSE?

Attendance typically ranges from 7,000- 8,000 participants, including both in-person and online attendees. That mix makes it one of the largest gatherings of higher-ed technology leaders worldwide.

What kinds of exhibitors will be there?

The expo floor includes more than 250 technology vendors –  from cybersecurity and cloud providers to edtech startups. Many attendees use EDUCAUSE to compare vendor roadmaps and hear how peers are evaluating new products.

Are sessions recorded?

Yes. EDUCAUSE records many of the breakout sessions and keynotes, which are available to registered attendees after the event. This makes it easier to revisit complex topics or share highlights with colleagues who couldn’t attend.

What are the networking formats?

Beyond traditional receptions, EDUCAUSE offers community group meetings, roundtables, and “birds of a feather” sessions. These small-format discussions are where niche topics –  like accessibility in AI tools or vendor contract pitfalls –  get candid attention.

How much does it cost to attend?

Pricing varies by membership status, but for 2025, in-person registration for EDUCAUSE members is around $1,900; non-members pay more. The online program is less expensive, typically $600–$700 for members. Many institutions budget specifically for EDUCAUSE because it doubles as professional development and vendor due diligence.

Why does EDUCAUSE emphasize trust this year?

The “Restoring Trust” theme was chosen after member surveys and research highlighted growing concerns about public confidence in higher ed, data security, and governance transparency. Trust is now seen as a unifying issue that cuts across technology, leadership, and student experience.

The post Your Guide to EDUCAUSE 2025: What Higher-Ed Leaders Need to Know appeared first on Centraleyes.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Centraleyes authored by Rebecca Kappel. Read the original post at: https://www.centraleyes.com/your-guide-to-educause-2025-what-higher-ed-leaders-need-to-know/