A new report from IDC shows that US educational institutions are poised to spend some $6.6 billion on IT in 2015. Much of that will be driven by investments in enterprise networks and higher end notebook computers.
Over 89 million students are enrolled in some sort of educational institution (full or part time, including continuing education) and all will increasingly need access to technology. That technology will also need to provide significant oversight in terms of testing and monitoring student performance metrics like attendance and advancement.
On a state by state basis, much of this technology spend will be driven by the biggest states. According to the 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).
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. Known players in this space include Tyler Technologies, Verizon, and Accenture.
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. Tablets and other e-readers will pick up the slack, accounting for 8% of the market across all education levels and types by the end of 2015, for a total of $522 million.
IDC plans to update the report on a bi-annual basis to reflect recent changes in the data. Watch this space.
