From Unconnected to Unified: A System-Wide Student Platform for 64 Campuses

The State University of New York (SUNY) System faced a critical information gap in measuring and managing one of its fastest growing areas: non-credit education. Inability to track enrollment, outcomes, or credentials for non-credit learners left the SUNY System strategically vulnerable in the face of fast approaching federal policy changes like Workforce Pell. To meet this challenge, SUNY’s technology leaders flipped the script, turning a data-management issue in one of its most fragmented areas into an opportunity to assert SUNY’s competitiveness on the national stage. As part of SUNY’s Digital Transformation Project, the System set out to scope a Non-Credit Student Information Management (NCSIM) initiative, initiating a multi-year effort to implement a cloud-based platform providing 64 individually operated campuses with shared infrastructure for non-credit registration, tracking, credentialing, and marketing. What emerged was a blueprint for a shared, learner-focused platform that unified all of SUNY’s offerings, both non-credit and for-credit, fundamentally altering the value proposition of New York’s public university system. Once complete, the platform will provide prospective and current students access to the combined value of the SUNY System—64 campuses, 32,000+ faculty, and 7,000+ programs—through a single interface, expanding upon SUNY’s position as a provider of career-boosting credentials and offering students pathways into matriculating degree programs.