Acquia for Education
Digital Experience for Higher Education
Run every department, program, and campaign site from one platform, without adding headcount to a lean web team.
What Acquia Provides Universities
Acquia gives education institutions one platform to launch new department and program sites, keep branding consistent across campus, and meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility requirements without adding headcount to a lean web team.
Education Use Cases
Drupal Hosting for Universities
Run one Drupal site or hundreds from a single platform. Acquia Cloud Platform delivers a 99.95% uptime SLA, automated security updates, and disaster recovery — critical during high-traffic enrollment and application deadlines.
Manage Hundreds of Campus Sites
Manage every department, school, and program site from one place. Acquia Multi-Experience Operations (MEO) gives your central web team governance over branding and templates while local editors keep the flexibility to publish their own content.
Asset Management
School branding matters. Acquia DAM centralizes photography, video, and marketing materials so every department, from athletics to admissions, uses approved, on-brand assets.
Meeting ADA Title II and WCAG 2.1 AA
Acquia Web Governance helps higher education institutions meet WCAG 2.1 AA requirements across hundreds of sites by continuously scanning for accessibility issues and routing AI-powered, role-specific fixes directly to the right team member.
Higher Education Customer Results
Increasing University Admissions
Use personalized student experiences
Manifesto & University of Dundee saw significant success implementing Acquia Personalization. Personalized journeys with dynamic content saw the “Open Days” campaign increase bookings by 220% over the previous year, with personalized calls-to-action on course and subject pages driving 86% of all conversions.
Drupal vs. WordPress for Higher Education
Check out our e-book to learn more about the important difference between WordPress and Drupal. Learn how Acquia and ImageX can help higher education institutions transform their digital experiences.
Does Acquia Support FERPA Compliance?
Check the box with Acquia.
FERPA governs the privacy of enrolled students' education records — it does not apply to prospective student data. Acquia's role-based access controls and governance workflows help your team manage who can view and publish that data, so compliance depends on your policies, not a single platform feature.
Students and families, not "customers"
Check out our e-book to learn how Acquia can help you meet modern customer expectations in higher education.
| What CMS do universities use? |
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Drupal is one of the most widely used content management systems in higher education, valued for multisite management, granular editorial permissions, and accessibility support. Acquia provides managed Drupal hosting, centralized governance across campus sites, and accessibility scanning. Bentley University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Virginia run on Acquia.
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| How do universities manage hundreds of department websites? |
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Centralized Site Operations runs every department, school, and program site from a shared codebase with common templates. The central web team controls branding and governance while local editors publish their own content, which removes the bottleneck without losing consistency.
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| What is the ADA Title II deadline for university websites? |
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Public institutions covered by a state or local entity with a total population of 50,000 or more must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027. Smaller entities and special district governments have until April 26, 2028. The Department of Justice extended both dates by one year in April 2026.
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| Does Acquia support FERPA compliance? |
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FERPA governs the privacy of enrolled students' education records and does not apply to prospective student data. Acquia provides role-based access controls and governance workflows that help institutions manage who can view and publish records, but compliance rests on institutional policy rather than any single platform feature.
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| Drupal or WordPress for higher education? |
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Drupal generally suits institutions running many sites with complex permissions, structured content, and strict accessibility requirements. WordPress suits smaller, simpler site estates. Most universities weighing the two are deciding between central governance and local autonomy rather than between feature lists.
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