Higher Education
Websites, campus platforms, and program catalogs for colleges and universities.
Higher education is one of our largest markets. We build sites, program catalogs, and campus integrations on Drupal, WordPress, or a modern framework, whichever genuinely fits, and make sure prospective students can find your programs whether they search Google or ask an AI assistant. We're based in Denver and work with schools across the U.S.
Higher education work we do
Catalogs that have to stay current, directories fed from HR, editors spread across a dozen departments, and accessibility that has to hold up to scrutiny. We build for all of it. Everything we build for you, both code and design, is yours. You paid for it, you own it.
We have worked with the University of Denver, CU Boulder, Tulane University, the Community College of Denver, and Arapahoe Community College, on everything from a campus-wide platform carrying hundreds of sites to a single department tool.
Websites & Platforms
New sites and redesigns for schools, colleges and individual departments, built on Drupal, WordPress or a modern framework depending on what the work actually calls for. Role-based editing lets each department manage its own content without a central team becoming the bottleneck.
- Site Builds & Redesigns
- Multi-Site Platforms
- Distributed Editing
Catalogs, Search & Integrations
Program and course catalogs prospective students can actually navigate, with faceted search and scheduled imports that keep them current, plus the integrations behind them: directory and HR feeds, existing authentication, and custom tools built for a single department's workflow.
- Program Catalogs
- Faceted Search
- Directory & System Syncs
AI Search & Visibility
Prospective students increasingly start in ChatGPT rather than a search box, and what those tools say about you is assembled from far more than your homepage. We make your site readable to them, mark up programs, faculty and courses as structured data, and work on the wider footprint they draw from: directory and ranking listings, review platforms, social and news profiles, and the consistency of your name, locations and program titles across all of it.
- Structured Program & Course Data
- AI Crawler Access
- Directory & Ranking Listings
- Consistent Brand Information
- Technical SEO & Performance
Maintenance & Support
Launch is the start of a campus site's life, not the end of it. Core and module updates, security advisories, accessibility regressions, and catalog imports that quietly stop running all need someone paying attention. We offer retainer and as-needed plans, and we support sites whether or not we built them. Every plan includes dedicated hours beyond the update work, so you can spend them on whatever matters most that month.
- Core, module and plugin security updates
- Accessibility audits and WCAG remediation
- Catalog import and data sync monitoring
- Structured data and AI crawler checks
- Performance tuning and Core Web Vitals
- Automated backups and tested recovery
- Training and documentation for campus teams
- Feature development across departments
Why institutions work with us
Higher education runs on longer cycles and tighter constraints than most commercial work: procurement, accreditation, governance spread across departments, and a prospective student audience that will not forgive a catalog which is out of date or a program page an AI assistant cannot read.
“We have been very pleased working with Rehab Creative. They have been a trustworthy partner and their quality of work is exceptional.”
We work with what you already run
We do a great deal of work in Drupal and WordPress, and build on modern frameworks where those fit better. If your institution already runs a platform, we will work in it rather than argue for a rebuild. If you are choosing, we will tell you honestly which one suits the requirement and why.
Accessibility is not optional
Public institutions are held to Section 508 and WCAG, and complaints are a real risk. We build to WCAG 2.1 AA from the start, and audit and remediate existing sites that fall short.
Get found by prospective students
Students now ask an assistant which schools are strong in a subject before they ever visit a website. Being recommended means the answers are already published and machine-readable: which programs you run, what they cost, how long they take, admission requirements, outcomes, and where you are. We make sure those answers exist on your site, are marked up so AI can read them, and are consistent everywhere else you appear.
Our clients keep coming back
We have worked within the University of Denver ecosystem for over twelve years, including IAALS, DU's first designated Research and Reform Institute, across repeated engagements and successive site generations. In a sector that re-procures every few years, that is the only real test of whether this works.
Recent education work
All projects
Community College of Denver
A 100+ pathway catalog with faceted search across programs, people and departments, an HR directory sync, and multilingual browsing for CCD's community languages.
View project
Arapahoe Community College
A custom ADA-compliant theme with a migration tool that imports course and program information daily, and catalog search built for an expanding program list.
View project
University of Colorado Boulder
A multi-step questionnaire that matches students with compatible roommates, carried through to roommate agreements, integrated with campus authentication and housing databases.
View project
IAALS, University of Denver
Twelve years on DU's first designated Research and Reform Institute, including a Drupal 7 migration, Apache Solr search and a custom donation system.
View projectQuestions institutions ask us
Which colleges and universities have you worked with?
Our higher education work includes the University of Denver, including IAALS, DU's first designated Research and Reform Institute, as well as the University of Colorado Boulder, Tulane University's Freeman School of Business, the Community College of Denver, and Arapahoe Community College.
Do you build on Drupal or WordPress?
Both, and sometimes neither. We build on whichever platform fits the institution: Drupal where there is real content complexity and granular permissions, WordPress where a department wants a familiar editing experience and a quick path to launch, and modern frameworks such as Astro or Payload where that suits better. We will tell you honestly which we would pick and why.
Can you build a program or course catalog?
Yes, and we have several times. The Community College of Denver catalog covers more than 100 academic pathways with faceted search across programs, people, departments, documents and events. For Arapahoe Community College we built a migration tool that imports course and program information daily so the catalog never drifts out of date.
How do you help programs get found and recommended by AI tools?
Prospective students now ask ChatGPT and similar tools which schools offer a given program. We make sure those crawlers can reach your site, mark up programs, departments and courses as structured data so they are machine-readable, and keep the technical foundations sound so your catalog is quoted accurately rather than guessed at.
Do you meet accessibility requirements for .edu sites?
Yes. We build to WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508, including custom accessible themes, and we take on audits and remediation for existing sites that do not currently meet them.
Can you integrate with our existing campus systems?
Yes. We have synced HR directory records from CSV feeds, run scheduled syncs against existing institutional databases, and built custom modules that integrate with third-party APIs and the authentication systems schools already use. In practice that has meant importing courses and programs daily from Modern Campus Catalog with two-way relationships between them, syncing a staff directory from an HR feed, embedding Gray DI Career Insights so students can weigh labor-market data against a credential, and multilingual browsing through GTranslate for a college's community languages.
Can you support a site your team did not build?
Yes. We review the existing codebase, hosting and configuration first, then take over updates, security patching, accessibility fixes and ongoing development without insisting on a rebuild.
Do you work with institutions outside Colorado?
Yes. Our whole team works from the Denver area, and we work with institutions across the United States. Tulane University in New Orleans is one example.
How do you work with our team?
However suits you. We work in whatever your team already uses, whether that is Slack, Teams, email, or a project tool like Monday, Wrike, Teamwork or Asana. For some clients we are effectively the web team: their editors and staff come to us directly with requests rather than routing everything through one point of contact, and we take in, prioritize and run that work ourselves. For others a single contact is simpler. Either way the developer doing your work is the one managing it, so there is no account layer between you and the person writing your code, and none to pay for. We fit how you already work rather than asking you to adopt our process.