Cognia Inc.

Cognia Inc. Postsecondary Education Division, doing business as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, is a nonprofit educational assessment and accreditation services provider that operates as a prime contractor (93% of recent awards) delivering student assessments, system accreditation, and compliance services to federal education agencies. Cognia is a tax-exempt corporate entity and a child subsidiary of Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, Inc. (SACSCOC), a parent nonprofit based in Decatur, Georgia, with Cognia's operational hub in Alpharetta, Georgia.

Cognia's federal capability portfolio centers on delivering standardized student assessments aligned to College and Career Ready Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, system accreditation services including site visits and institutional evaluation, alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities, online and paper-based assessment platforms with secure student registration portals, test item banks, EdFacts-compliant reporting infrastructure, and accreditation analytics and online tools. Representative work includes a $4.174 million firm fixed-price purchase order awarded by the Bureau of Indian Education on September 15, 2026, for science assessment services serving approximately 4,600 BIE students annually in grades 5, 8, and 11 through October 2031, bundling Commercial Off-the-Shelf assessments, a secure online student registration portal, weekly webinars, up to ten annual training sessions, and compliance with NIST SP 800-53 controls, FIPS 140-2/140-3 encryption, FERPA, COPPA, CIPA, and Section 508 accessibility standards. Cognia also holds three indefinite delivery contracts with the Department of Defense Education Activity totaling approximately $22.98 million through 2032: one for assessment platform, test and item bank services (ceiling $11.328 million through June 2032), one for system accreditation services (ceiling $11.107 million through September 2032), and one for consortium membership and alternate assessments (ceiling $542 thousand through July 2026). DoDEA has issued fifteen delivery orders under these IDVs since 2022, ranging from $6,500 to $923,676 and covering accreditation site visits, assessment administration, analytics platforms, and specialized services for students with disabilities.

Customer concentration is acute and favorable: the Department of Defense Education Activity dominates the portfolio with 16 awards valued at $29.5 million in combined potential value (74% of all awards and 74% of all potential value), while the Bureau of Indian Education accounts for 3 awards valued at $10.4 million (26% of potential value). The top two customers alone represent 85% of all awards and capture 100% of combined potential value. These two customers are the only material federal buyers in Cognia's footprint; remaining agencies (the Department of the Navy, Department of Agriculture Forest Service Job Corps, and Department of the Interior Central Office) account for five awards totaling $35 thousand combined potential value. Activity has remained relatively flat: six awards in 2022 declined to two or three awards per year in 2023–2025, with two awards reaching ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months and carrying $6.2 million in combined potential value facing recompete exposure. Cognia's recent contract win—the BIE science assessments order issued on September 15, 2026—represents a material inflection upward after several lean years.

Cognia operates as a prime across all three parent IDV vehicles with DoDEA, which generate the bulk of federal revenue. Across SCI-reportable service contracts (those above the $150,000 threshold), Cognia invoiced $749 thousand in FY2022 and $1 million in FY2023, with no reported SCI invoicing in FY2024 or FY2025, reflecting a contraction in smaller-dollar service work even as the larger IDV vehicles remained active. On these SCI contracts, the vendor deployed 2.3 full-time equivalents in FY2022 and 0.3 FTEs in FY2023, with zero FTE reporting thereafter. Government-paid hourly rates on federal services contracts ranged from $284.12 per hour at the 10th percentile to $1,288.64 per hour at the 90th percentile, with a median around $786.38 per hour. Cognia performs work directly with no subcontractor engagement reported across its prime service contract footprint. Cognia also acts as a prime grant recipient: it received a project grant from the Bureau of Administration with completion in July 2023 and holds two sub-grant awards under Maine Department of Education and North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, both related to special education services and professional development reimbursement. The vendor's posture is consistently full-and-open (no set-asides applied across any named award) and oriented toward direct performance rather than subcontracting.