Financial Aid Platform Modernization

The Vendor is required to provide to identify potential commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) or configurable SaaS-based platforms that can support end-to-end financial aid management.
- Functional Requirements
•    User account registration and student aid application intake
•    Eligibility determination and need analysis (student aid index/SAI, Pell indicators, comment codes)
•    Award calculation and packaging across multiple programs
•    Disbursement processing and reconciliation with the commonwealth accounting system, mosaic
•    Post-award adjustments, appeals, and repayments
•    Institutional data exchange via secure SFTP or APIS
•    Compliance and audit reporting
•    Configurable dashboards and analytics
•    Accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA) and mobile support
•    Multilingual User Experience and Communications 
o    The platform supports configurable multilingual interfaces and communications, enabling student-facing workflows (application intake, status updates, and notifications) to be delivered in multiple languages
- Technical Requirements
•    Cloud-based or SaaS architecture (StateRAMP/FedRAMP preferred)
•    SSO/SAML integration with Commonwealth identity services
•    Data encryption in transit and at rest
•    Configurable workflow and business rules management
•    APIs for integration with EOE/DHE systems
•    Role-based access control and full audit trail
•    Configurable templates for correspondence (email, letters, notifications)
•    Scalable performance and modular architecture
- Implementation and Support
•    Implementation methodology and timeline
•    Data migration and conversion strategy
•    Testing, training, and UAT support
•    Post-implementation maintenance and SLA framework
•    Availability of sandbox/demo environment
•    Experience with state or higher-education financial aid systems
- The objective is to assess available solutions that can manage student aid applications, eligibility determination, award calculations, disbursement, institutional interfaces, and compliance reporting in alignment with state policies and federal aid data sources, such as free application for federal student aid.