28th Annual PowerFAIDS User Conference: Live from the Cloud
In mid-June, the PowerFAIDS™ team virtually welcomed the largest ever PowerFAIDS User Conference at its 28th annual event. With more than 1,100 users registered, this year's event brought together a significant portion of the institutions in the PowerFAIDS community to connect and learn from College Board experts and their PowerFAIDS peers.
The opening session kicked off the event with updates from both the desktop and cloud teams in PowerFAIDS. This year, PowerFAIDS made the significant move to begin transitioning its community off the desktop product and onto the redesigned, innovative version hosted on the cloud with Amazon Web Services. Throughout the event, attendees asked key questions about functionality offered in the cloud, including features like New Year Setup, which allows schools to easily roll over annual setup each year.
Attendees also heard exciting perspectives from six “early adopter” institutions—those colleges and schools that have already begun using the cloud-based system. Early adopter institutions offered high praise for the onboarding process and the support the PowerFAIDS team has provided throughout the transition.
The process has been extremely organized and very strategic. Every cycle has built upon the previous cycle. The instructional meetings, the one-on-one sessions, the open office hours, the prompt email responses from the team, as well as the availability of the community site, have been extraordinary.
Director of Financial Aid, Small Private College
The PowerFAIDS Cloud early adopter program was kept intentionally small in year one to deliver the highest possible service to institutions transitioning to the new platform. In addition to current institutions in the early adopter program, the PowerFAIDS team will welcome three brand- new PowerFAIDS Cloud schools, with additional new institutions joining in the coming year.
PowerFAIDS now moves into recruitment for the second year of cloud adopters and anticipates that all PowerFAIDS schools will complete the move by 2025 for the 2026-27 award year.
Next year’s conference is planned to return in person for the first time since COVID and will welcome users from across the country. As the PowerFAIDS User Conference approaches its 30th year delivering content to the community, the team and its institutions remain as excited as ever to learn, grow, and connect as aid professionals.
College Board’s Financial Aid Programs and Services team partners with hundreds of schools to provide financial aid services and enrollment solutions through offerings like PowerFAIDS, CSS Profile®, and more. To learn more about these services, contact our team at [email protected].