In an open call last month, we asked education and industry leaders for their predictions on the cybersecurity landscape for schools, districts, colleges, and universities in 2026. Privacy and security will increasingly depend on a combined strategy that pairs effective software safeguards with ongoing staff training. Aligning these tools with procurement policies centered on privacy, security, interoperability, accessibility, and gen AI will shift from a recommended practice to an essential one. In response, many institutions will benefit from Risk Operations Centers (ROCs) as a modern evolution of traditional security operations using agentic AI. ROCs at higher education organizations will consolidate data across campus systems to mitigate cybersecurity risks in real time, prioritize threats, and coordinate faster, smarter AI-driven risk management.