HighPoint Degree Planner

HighPoint Degree Planner is a web-based planning tool for institutions that use PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. It suits students mapping requirements, advisors monitoring progress, and registrars or academic-affairs teams managing planning workflows. Its strongest case is a visual, automatically updated path to graduation; its main constraint is that it is designed for a PeopleSoft environment and remains an advising aid rather than a replacement for personal guidance.

Overview

Degree Planner places graduation requirements into academic terms and shows the resulting route in a visual dashboard. Students can see completed courses, outstanding requirements, and recommended sequences, then move courses into more suitable terms. The planner stays synchronized with degree audits and scheduling, so a plan can reflect academic progress, prerequisites, and typical semesters in which courses are offered.

That combination makes the product more useful than a static checklist. A student considering a heavier credit load, a different major, or study abroad can create a what-if scenario and inspect how the change affects the route to graduation. Advisors can use the same view to spot students whose plans may put on-time completion at risk. The practical limitation is important: the planner prepares students for advising, but does not replace one-to-one help from an academic advisor.

Key features

Visual course sequencing

The dashboard turns requirements and recommended sequences into a term-by-term map. Moving courses between terms gives students a concrete way to test schedules instead of reasoning from an undifferentiated requirement list.

Automatic plan updates

At the University of Pittsburgh, plans are generated and refreshed from academic progress, degree requirements, prerequisites, and typical course-offering semesters. This reduces the administrative work of rebuilding a plan after a requirement or completed course changes, while keeping the output dependent on the institution’s PeopleSoft data.

What-if scenarios and alerts

Scenario planning covers changes such as credit load, major, and study abroad. Early-alert capabilities and advisor views can direct attention to students who may need help staying on schedule, making the tool relevant to retention and completion work as well as individual planning.

PeopleSoft-native operation

HighPoint builds its products to reside inside PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. The company describes configuration-driven implementation, installation that takes minutes, and no separate integrations, with the institution retaining control of its data. This is a clear operational advantage for a PeopleSoft institution, but it makes Degree Planner a poor fit for campuses built around another student-information platform.

Pricing

Degree Planner uses paid, custom pricing. HighPoint asks prospective institutions to schedule a personalized demo; no public tiers, seat allowances, trial period, renewal terms, or free plan are provided. That structure is aimed at institutions that need a configured PeopleSoft deployment and are prepared for a sales-led evaluation, not buyers seeking a self-serve subscription with predictable per-user costs.

Platforms

The product is delivered on the web, with mobile access described through the secure, mobile-friendly HighPoint Campus Experience interface. Its use of students’ PeopleSoft requirements and its placement inside PeopleSoft Campus Solutions make the underlying platform requirement as significant as the browser access.

Who it's for

Students get a visual way to evaluate course options and build a path to graduation, particularly when they need to compare alternatives before meeting an advisor. Advisors benefit from a shared plan view and signals that can identify students who may be falling off track. Registrars and academic-affairs teams are the institutional buyers most likely to value synchronized audits, scheduling data, and PeopleSoft-native administration.

It is not the right choice for an individual learner looking for a standalone planning app, or for an institution that does not run PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. Students should also treat its recommendations as preparation for advising, not as an autonomous substitute for an advisor’s judgment.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Visual term-by-term sequencing makes remaining requirements and recommended order easier to act on.
• Pro: What-if scenarios cover credit load, major changes, and study abroad, supporting realistic contingency planning.
• Pro: Automatic updates can account for progress, prerequisites, and typical course-offering semesters.
• Pro: PeopleSoft-native deployment keeps planning connected to audits and scheduling without separate integrations.
• Con: The product is designed for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions institutions, limiting its relevance on other student-information systems.
• Con: Students still need individual advisor support, so the planner cannot stand alone as an advising service.
• Con: Custom pricing and demo-led sales make budgeting difficult before an institutional conversation.

Alternatives

CollegeSource Transferology is the better choice when transfer exploration is the priority and a free student account is useful; institutions can request a tailored subscription.

FlightPath suits organizations wanting a free, self-hosted web option that they can download, install, and run with MySQL and PHP.

Ellucian Degree Works is an alternative for institutions seeking a paid degree-audit platform across web, mobile, API, and Linux environments.

Ellucian Banner Finance is a paid Ellucian alternative for organizations evaluating that vendor’s broader administrative software.

DegreeSight offers a paid, web-based option with custom pricing and no published tiers.

Ellucian Advising is another paid web alternative for institutions that want an Ellucian advising product.

Kuali Financials is a paid API and web alternative sold through institutional inquiry and demos.

Risely Agentic Degree Audit is a paid web alternative focused on degree-audit use.

For broader category comparisons, see Degree Audit Software and Academic Advising Software.

Verdict

Choose HighPoint Degree Planner if your institution runs PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and wants synchronized, visual planning with what-if scenarios and advisor-oriented alerts. Look elsewhere if you need a platform-neutral product, transparent subscription pricing, or a tool intended to replace personal advising rather than support it.