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Ellucian Colleague vs. PowerSchool Student Information System

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Ellucian Colleague

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AEllucian offers Colleague educational ERP, including a student information system supporting higher education institutions with student admissions and registration, academics, curriculum management, and other aspects of student management.N/A

    PowerSchool SIS

    Score8.4 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The PowerSchool Student Information System covers administrative needs, such as scheduling, attendance, reporting, data management, faculty management, emergency/medical and health management, registration, and more for K-12 schools and districts. It is easy to use and boasts an industry-leading gradebook, PowerTeacher Pro. Users enjoy a fully web-based SIS that is flexible, configurable, and scalable with real-time updates on any operating system, browser or device.N/A
    Pricing
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Considered Both Products
    Ellucian
    No answer on this topic
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    5 Answers
    95%
    Would buy again
    18 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    5 Answers
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    90%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    Features
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Student and Faculty Administration
    Comparison of Student and Faculty Administration features of Ellucian Colleague and PowerSchool Student Information System
    Feature
    Ellucian Colleague
    7.8
    3 Ratings
    6% below category average
    PowerSchool Student Information System
    8.5
    3 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Integrations with 3rd-Party Education Technology7.03 Ratings9.02 Ratings
    Online Registration Management8.02 Ratings10.02 Ratings
    District Communications, such as messaging and alerting7.02 Ratings8.12 Ratings
    Roster Management8.02 Ratings9.03 Ratings
    Platform Customization8.03 Ratings7.73 Ratings
    Teacher Self-Service8.02 Ratings9.03 Ratings
    Student Data Security8.03 Ratings9.43 Ratings
    Community Support7.02 Ratings7.43 Ratings
    Class Scheduling8.03 Ratings9.43 Ratings
    State and National-level Reporting8.03 Ratings7.12 Ratings
    Compliance Support8.03 Ratings7.62 Ratings
    Teacher and Parent Mobile Application8.02 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Small Businesses
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    Medium-sized Companies
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Schoolmint Hero
    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.5
    (12 ratings)
    9.0
    (32 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Ellucian ColleaguePowerSchool SIS
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Ellucian
    Ellucian Colleague is wonderful at streamlining processes and unifying data related to students, finance, human resources, and financial aid. It continues to support and manage administrative needs, enhance student experiences, and improve operational efficiency across the University. Ellucian Colleague is less suited for quick data retrieval and comprehensive financial reporting. These functions could use some improvement to optimize the user experience.
    Read full review
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    PowerSchool Student Information System is a cool software that can be highly recommended to anyone who is living in the educational management space. It is proven that this software can reduce your manual workload massively if you use it right. Plus it is really worth the price you pay. Especially if you are in the administrative field, this software will help you to minimize manual efforts put into student registrations, staffing recruitment, and main resource management processes.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Ellucian
    • Colleague Student allows us to integrate services across the university for students with staff in various departments able to see the information about a student that they need to serve the student well.
    • Colleague Student makes it easy to see our students current academic record as well as transfer courses (and information) and their past records here at the university. Our old system required a lot of homegrown connection points to be able to see all of this information. It was neither quick nor easy.
    • Colleague Student makes the registration process for our students much easier. Our old system was clunky and would often prevent students from registering for a class but not provide information for them about why. Colleague Student makes it easy for students to see if they are missing a pre-requisite, have a hold, etc., so they can know how to get their registration back on track.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • PowerSchool houses student or staff information that can be easily accessed by those teachers and administrators who need the information. This allows everyone to go to one place to access information.
    • Parents can view their child's grades at any time with their protected login on a parent portal. This allows teachers to keep parents informed and involved in their child's progress at school. When everyone works together it increases our students' chance for success.
    • PowerSchool offers videos to train new users. When we have new employees, the videos can be accessed at any time the employee needs as opposed to them waiting for someone to help them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Ellucian
    • Develop API's that are vendor agnostic rather than selecting specific vendors (Clearinghouse, ImageNow).
    • Colleague tends to be to reactionary to the changing needs in higher education rather than developing the future.
    • Hound clients to pay extra for consulting (consultants are usually bad), rather than helping institutions to use the product. Seems to be the first thing help line personnel jump to rather than working with clients to figure out creative solutions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • Does not consistently communicate with related software such as Illuminate for Special Education Students.
    • Drop down menus frequently refresh as data is entered which slows down the user's ability to enter information.
    • Icons are sometimes unclear and not easily understandable. Word labels for some items might be more effective.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Ellucian
    No answers on this topic
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    We would be starting over at square one if we did not continue our PowerSchool subscription. We do not have a program in a place that would take its place.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Ellucian
    For decades, Ellucian Colleague has served the University as our primary student record-retention CRM. Its functionality has weathered many recent trends in CRM development and continues to produce the needed results for our constituency and the size of our university. We look forward to continuing to utilize Ellucian Colleague in the future.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Great features, but it can feel very cumbersome at times
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Ellucian
    No answers on this topic
    PowerSchool Group LLC
    Overall, I have not had to use support for PowerSchool Student Information System because our school district gives us training in each area in which we will be utilizing PowerSchool Student Information System. In terms of in-user support, I feel that there is mild to moderate user support that is built into PowerSchool SIS.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Ellucian
    I did not use Jenzabar as extensively as Colleague, but they perform similar functions for student information tracking. I think Colleague is more appropriate for use across campus, as its student billing and scheduling options exceed Jenzabar. Jenzabar, however, offers better tools for use exclusively in student affairs. If an organization wants to track all student data, they should consider Colleague.
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    I have heard good things for Infinite Campus and Skyward. I would [evaluate] each of them and see what fits your needs. Each has their strengths and weaknesses and so picking the right one for your needs is important. PowerSchool [Student Information System] does have some great features, but lacks some fundamental reports and functions to make it top notch.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Ellucian
    • By keeping student's academic work, financial aid, and accounts receivable information in one location we are able to report without the need for data aggregation.
    • Colleague's web applications allow the students themselves to perform tasks such as enrollment without assistance from staff members.
    • Using customized rules that we can set up in Colleague we can trigger events to happen as data is entered. This eliminates the need not only for someone to remember to perform an additional task, but it also saves the time of performing the actual task.
    Incentivized
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    PowerSchool Group LLC
    • It has created shortcuts for all staff members, saving us time.
    • In creating shortcuts and combining many different systems into one, it is saving our school money.
    • It has created a safety net for teachers because grades and student information is stored electronically, which means teachers not having to worry about losing or misplacing their grade books.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    PowerSchool SIS Screenshots

    Screenshot of Student attendanceScreenshot of Standards-based gradingScreenshot of At-risk dashboardScreenshot of Parent view of student schedule