Ellucian Banner Student vs Salesforce Education Cloud

Ellucian Banner Student is a web-based student information system for higher education institutions. It supports learners from recruitment and admissions through student success and lifelong learning, serving students, faculty, staff, advisors, registrars, and administrators. Admissions capabilities include predictive analytics for high-intent prospects, automated campaigns, and fraudulent-application checks. Student aid tools provide AI scholarship matching and help students understand costs and funding access. Curriculum governance supports program development, approvals, and catalog updates. For student success, Banner includes AI degree planning, degree audits, early alerts, intervention workflows, a student planning portal, and real-time retention analytics. The brochure describes a modular interface, ready-made dashboards, and single sign-on. Ellucian Ethos connects people, processes, and technology across an institution. Built-in controls are intended to support regulations and accreditation standards. Ellucian says its Cloud Services are ISO 27001:2022 certified, with annual SOC 1, SOC 2 Type II, and SOC 3 reports available to customers. Pricing is on request.

Salesforce Education Cloud supports institutional work across the student, campus, and staff journey, from recruitment through admissions and student services. Agentforce can answer prospective students’ questions at any time, capture interests, register campus tours, and start applications. Recruitment teams can use adaptive inquiry forms and coordinate communications across web, email, SMS, and social, with automated scoring and AI-powered applicant insights. Applicants can start, save, and complete dynamic applications, use autofill, and reuse components across programs. Admissions teams can review applications and supporting information, including third-party data, in one secure location and record reviewer recommendations with scoring. CRM dashboards and predictive AI alerts help teams follow enrollment goals, rates, and trends. The product also supports application management, admissions workflows, event management, SMS messaging, and a student portal. It runs on Android, iOS, and web, with an API. Enterprise Edition costs $87 USD per user per month, billed annually; the listed editions require annual contracts and reflect nonprofit pricing. A 30-day trial is available without a credit card or installation.