In 2013, compliance issues march, unceasingly, through every aspect of higher education. Yet the intricacies of privacy, information security, data governance, and IT policy as compliance and risk areas within the IT organization can reverberate and impact every other department within the higher education institution. The primary focus is always the information that is received, managed, shared, stored, or destroyed as part of the daily procedures inside any institution. IT compliance in 2013 is blended inside multiple institution functions. Managing risk as an integral part of compliance is an attempt to lower the odds that a bad event will occur or to increase the odds that a good event will occur. Some element of risk will always exist. Incidents, data breaches, hacking, falling for phishing e-mails, viruses, and malware will still affect operations in higher education, though hopefully with lower frequency and severity. Controlling the impact of risks after a vulnerability has been exploited will remain as important as preparing for risks in advance. Only through collaborative compliance and risk discussions can appropriate decisions be made about both the everyday activities and the transformative new technologies that are or will be available to the higher education institution of 2020.