According to a new IT spending guide from IDC Government Insights, U.S. Higher education institutions are expected to spend about $6.6 billion on IT in 2015, much of that driven by investments in enterprise networks and higher end notebook computers.
The first guide of its kind, , “Pivot Table: U.S. Education IT Spending Guide, Version 1, 2013–2018,” (Document#GI255747) provides estimates and forecasts for the U.S. education IT opportunity, which covers K–12, higher, and “other” education among the following segments: education level, individual states, education functional area, enrollment levels (school size), and technology segments.
The new guide, to be published bi-annually, provides a detailed evaluation of the IT opportunity among U.S. education institutions based on tens of thousands of data points. Of note, over 89 million students are enrolled in some sort of educational institution (full or part time, including continuing education). According to the new report, California is by far the leader for overall education IT consumption (at $2.3 billion for 2015), followed by Texas ($1.2 billion) and New York ($1.1 billion.).
Key highlights of the new guide include:
- U.S. Higher education institutions are expected to spend about $6.6 billion on IT in 2015, much of that driven by investments in enterprise networks and higher end notebook computers.
- U.S. K-12 schools are expected to spend about $4.7 billion, on IT in 2015 much of that lead by investments in applications and general PC upgrades.
- Tablets & readers will grow by 8% across all education levels and types by the end of 2015, for a total of $522 million.
- Spending on notebook computers peaked in 2014 at just over $4 billion across all education levels and types. It will drop about 6.9% for 2015.
According to Shawn McCarthy, Research Director, IDC Government Insights, “IT growth among educational institutions has been spurred by a recovering economy, recovering tax bases and an increase in the number of government education grants. While the drop in PC spending was a bit surprising last year, we expect tablet computers to have a bright future in education, particularly for use in science classes and for one-off training via apps.”
