Case Study: North Carolina State University achieves 500,000 annual non‑credit course registrations and major cost savings with Mendix

NC State Uses Low-code Development to Deliver 500,000 Non-credit Course Registrations per Year

North Carolina State University, a land‑grant institution that delivers over 500,000 non‑credit course registrations annually, faced a fragmented registration ecosystem across 100+ units—ranging from sticky notes and spreadsheets to Shadow IT—making federal and state grant reporting, compliance (including PCI DSS), and efficient outreach difficult. Commercial vendors quoted $3–10M and multi‑year timelines, which the university could not afford, so NC State needed a faster, cost‑effective way to standardize registration and reporting.

NC State adopted the Mendix low‑code platform and used student interns to build REPORTER (MVP in ~2 months, full launch in 5), at a total cost in the low six figures versus multimillion‑dollar COTS estimates. REPORTER standardized a PCI‑compliant registration system used by ~30 departments, eliminated shadow IT, delivered FTE savings, and enabled a separate lab management app that saves two‑thirds of admin time and generates over $1M/year—while also growing a productive, home‑grown development team.

North Carolina State University

Jordan Boyle

Software Developer