Despite the negative parent, wouldn't you agree that the cost of integration has to be absorbed by somebody? In this case, the application vendors have to pass the cost to the schools (plus a margin).
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The question is whether the schools will be better off having one party in control? That's usually not a recipe for cost containment.
Despite the negative parent, wouldn't you agree that the cost of integration has to be absorbed by somebody?
That's the point I'm making. Of course the integration has a cost. I believe that it simply costs a whole lot more of if everyone does that integration themselves. I can pay Clever a monthly fee or I can pay several developers to go out and learn how to do it at $100k a pop. Even if Clever is charging me $10k/month I'm still coming out pretty far ahead.
Not to mention the cost of ongoing maintenance every time something changes at an individual school.
tldr; you can spread the cost of integrating one time out among a bunch of companies, or each company can do it themselves. One of those is (by far) not only more efficient, but very likely much cheaper as well.
[edit] The question is whether the schools will be better off having one party in control? That's usually not a recipe for cost containment.