Ad Astra vs Ellucian PowerCampus Financial Aid
Ad Astra
aais.comEllucian PowerCampus Financial Aid
ellucian.comSide by side
| Figure | Ad Astra | Ellucian PowerCampus Financial Aid |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Higher Education Software | 7.6 (#7) | 7.6 (#9) |
| Founded | Ad Astra says it has helped colleges and universities since 1996. | 1986 |
| Headquarters | The contact page lists Ad Astra at 6900 W. 80th St., Overland Park, KS 66204. | Reston, Virginia, United States |
| Purpose | Ad Astra provides academic and room scheduling tools to help higher education institutions streamline planning, promote financial sustainability, and enhance student success. | PowerCampus Financial Aid is a customizable system that automates financial aid processing and is designed to help institutions manage aid and meet federal requirements. |
| Security | Ad Astra's privacy notice says it uses encryption, secure servers, and monitoring to safeguard data. | Ellucian says its cloud services are ISO 27001:2022 certified and undergo annual SOC audits, with SOC reports available to customers. |
| Support | Support includes ticket submission, a software knowledge base, and access to an expert; the company also describes onboarding, training, and consulting services. | Ellucian offers support through its Customer Center and by phone; access to support cases and downloads requires institution approval and an active maintenance agreement. |
Plans
Ellucian PowerCampus Financial Aid
- Ellucian PowerCampus Financial AidPriced on request
In their own words
Ad Astra
Ad Astra is academic planning and scheduling software for colleges and universities. Its suite handles course, room, and event scheduling, classroom optimization, registration monitoring, demand forecasting, and annual schedule planning. Real-time data and predictive analytics help institutions align schedules with student demand. Student Demand Forecasting uses pathway data and historical enrollment patterns to predict course demand. Conflict detection, teacher constraints, room constraints, and multi-campus support are listed capabilities. A report library helps institutions evaluate scheduling practices, while the Higher Education Scheduling Index provides benchmarking measures. The platform names certified, bi-directional SIS integrations with Ellucian Banner, Ellucian Colleague, Jenzabar, Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, and Workday, plus flexible APIs. Its smart scheduling platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Support includes tickets, a knowledge base, expert access, onboarding, training, and consulting. Pricing is paid and available on request. Ad Astra says it partners with more than 550 institutions.
Ellucian PowerCampus Financial Aid
Ellucian PowerCampus Financial Aid automates financial aid processing for educational institutions and is designed to help them manage aid and meet federal requirements. The customizable system uses College Board PowerFAIDS and can track applications, maintain student records, calculate budgets, analyze need, and prepare individual or batch award packages. It can process and disburse funds, handle federal data, and generate financial aid emails, letters and customized reports. Compliance support includes processing ISIR and College Board CSSProfile data, FISAP reporting, FM Calculation, Pell Schedule updates and NSLDS transfer monitoring updates; Ellucian also lists PowerCampus support for 1098-T tuition statement reporting. Students can use the companion PowerFAIDS Net Partner portal to update profiles, accept or decline awards, and view application status, awards, messages and aid information. Ellucian describes web-enabled access on a Microsoft platform and lists cloud deployment. The product is aimed at small to mid-sized colleges and universities. Pricing is available on request.