https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/ en https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/ai-enabled-ghost-student-fraud-how-it-leaders-are-fighting-back-perfcon First, there was the zombie college scam. Now it’s “ghost students,” bad actors leveraging artificial intelligence to create fake identities and enroll imaginary students to scoop up grants and loans.  AI tools now allow synthetic identities to mimic genuine student behavior long enough to collect financial aid disbursements, and traditional enrollment systems are falling short. The schemes are costing the U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in siphoned-off federal financial aid packages. What Are Ghost Students, and How Is AI Making Fraud Worse? Ghost students are “fake or… Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:04:11 -0400 Adam Stone https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/ai-enabled-ghost-student-fraud-how-it-leaders-are-fighting-back-perfcon https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/higher-ed-it-budgets-face-dual-threat-federal-research-cuts-and-state-funding-pressure-perfcon Higher education leadership and IT teams are battling ghost students, establishing AI governance and managing competing priorities as students return to campus. Adding to this strain is a major shift in federal philosophy about National Institutes of Health grants, National Science Foundation funding and broader federal research funding cuts in what has historically been a university-centric system.  In previous years, Congress has approved the federal budget, so that agencies such as NIH, NSF and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science could move swiftly to release funding… Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:50:45 -0400 Akeya Dickson https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/higher-ed-it-budgets-face-dual-threat-federal-research-cuts-and-state-funding-pressure-perfcon https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/why-higher-ed-it-cant-afford-wait-quantum-security Sometimes, dealing with cybersecurity can feel like the boardwalk arcade game Whac-A-Mole. Just when you’ve addressed a potential threat with hardware, software and operating system patches, another threat comes from a direction you never anticipated. A new threat to many organizations’ cybersecurity is looming, and it could be the biggest one of all: quantum computing. The good news is that universities and other organizations can take steps now to protect their systems that might be vulnerable in a few years. Quantum computing, where processors use the principles of quantum physics, is… Wed, 05 Aug 2026 18:20:16 -0400 Joel Keller https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/why-higher-ed-it-cant-afford-wait-quantum-security https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/qa-texas-tech-cio-joins-statewide-quantum-committee Artificial intelligence dominates the headlines, but quantum computing isn’t far behind. That’s especially true in Texas, where Texas Tech University CIO, Vice President for IT and Executive Director of AI and Quantum Computing Lin Zhou was recently appointed by the governor to the state’s Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee. The committee will guide the new Texas Quantum Initiative, which aims to make Texas a national and global leader in the field.  The committee is a perfect fit for Zhou, who started his career as a physicist and spent many years leading AI initiatives at IBM. He’s… Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:45:12 -0400 Amy Burroughs https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/qa-texas-tech-cio-joins-statewide-quantum-committee https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/campus-network-infrastructure-student-experience The signals are undeniable: Modernized campus network infrastructure is now the central nervous system of a competitive higher education institution. When the network stumbles, the institution feels it everywhere. That’s the shift we want more campus leaders to sit with. We used to think of digital infrastructure as more of a back-office concern. It isn’t anymore. The network, the security posture and the classroom technology now shape the student experience, influence enrollment and increasingly determine how competitive an institution can be over the long term. Click the banner below for… Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:45:03 -0400 Michael Durand https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/08/campus-network-infrastructure-student-experience https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/why-ai-driven-observability-rising-top-higher-ed-it-priorities While much of the executive conversation around artificial intelligence focuses on transformation within business units, more organizations are looking inward. For IT teams, that means turning to AI not for strategic reinvention but to solve long‑standing operational challenges that impact uptime, user experience and cost efficiency. AI‑enabled observability and AI for operations (AIOps) is emerging as one of the most practical, high‑value starting points for institutional AI adoption. Across networking, infrastructure and security operations, IT leaders are looking to AI to help prevent… Wed, 29 Jul 2026 13:18:14 -0400 Andrew White https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/why-ai-driven-observability-rising-top-higher-ed-it-priorities https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/review-canva-campus-provides-shared-platform-visual-communication Universities produce an enormous amount of visual content. Faculty members create lecture presentations and course materials. Marketing teams produce event promotions and recruitment campaigns. Students generate slides, videos and graphics for coursework. But keeping all of those efforts coordinated while maintaining quality and brand consistency can be difficult. Canva for Campus is designed to simplify that process by providing a shared platform where students, faculty and staff can design, collaborate and publish visual materials without needing specialized design software. Canva for… Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:22:47 -0400 John Breeden II https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/review-canva-campus-provides-shared-platform-visual-communication https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/what-ada-title-ii-digital-accessibility-deadline-means-university-it-procurement The original compliance date for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II digital accessibility for large public institutions came and went in April. Then the Justice Department extended it. And for the organizations tracking this closely, the honest assessment is still that almost no one is ready. That’s not a criticism. It’s a baseline. There is no time back. Every institution is well behind in becoming compliant, at least according to the updated regulation. This is a full-throttle, go-forward moment. The extension doesn’t change the urgency; it adds time to do a thing that… Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:01:34 -0400 John Rathje https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/what-ada-title-ii-digital-accessibility-deadline-means-university-it-procurement https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/review-jabra-biz-1100-edu-headset-delivers-where-it-counts Walk into any university computer lab during finals week or remote learning sessions, and audio challenges are immediately apparent. Students on adjacent machines bleed sound into each other’s ears. Spoken instructions compete with the hum of the heating and cooling system. Students toss headsets into bags full of books and personal items, subjecting hardware to the kind of punishment that turns most consumer headsets into trash within weeks. The Jabra Biz 1100 EDU was built in direct response to these conditions, and I recently tested it to ensure it could stand up to the demands of higher… Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:32:00 -0400 Carlos Soto https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/review-jabra-biz-1100-edu-headset-delivers-where-it-counts https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/what-ai-bill-materials When an AI system makes a “bad decision,” most organizations can’t really explain why. They aren’t entirely sure which data trained it, where the error was, which version it was running or which third-party components were involved. This is an ethical and regulatory blind spot that creates risk for tech leaders in institutions of all sizes, and it’s driving interest in a newer framework called the AI bill of materials. If you’ve ever seen a software bill of materials, or SBOM, then you already understand the concept. But many organizations have not yet thought about applying that framework… Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:30:40 -0400 Alexandra Frost https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2026/07/what-ai-bill-materials