Why Cybersecurity Still Matters for America's Schools

The commentary warns that colleges and universities are experiencing a surge in cyberattacks—notably ransomware—with high incident counts and rising weekly attacks; it attributes this to open networks, decentralized IT, and valuable research and financial data, outlines the significant remediation and compliance costs (FERPA, GLBA, CMMC), and urges institutions to perform cybersecurity audits, centralize governance where appropriate, and prioritize defensive and recovery investments to strengthen resilience within constrained budgets.