NASPO ValuePoint for Higher Education: How It Works and When to Use It

NASPO ValuePoint is a cooperative purchasing program run by state procurement officials (the National Association of State Procurement Officials). Instead of a single organization soliciting every contract, individual states lead the competitive solicitations, and the resulting contracts are made available to public entities — including public colleges and universities — in participating states.

Best for: large technology buys. NASPO ValuePoint's IT, software, and cloud contracts are among the strongest available, thanks to the scale of state-led solicitations.

How NASPO ValuePoint works

A lead state runs a full competitive solicitation and awards a contract; other participating states can then use it. Because the awarding and participation happen at the state level, NASPO ValuePoint is a natural fit for public institutions that already align their purchasing with state procurement rules.

The one big caveat: participation is by state

The most important thing to understand about NASPO ValuePoint is that access is geographic. Whether your institution can use a particular contract depends on whether your state participated in it. A contract that a public university in one state can use may not be available to a university in another. This makes NASPO more variable than Sourcewell or OMNIA Partners, whose contracts are broadly available nationally. Always confirm your state's participation before relying on a NASPO contract.

Where it fits alongside the others

For technology, check NASPO ValuePoint alongside the other cooperatives — it often has the deepest IT options. For campus-specific and general categories, pair it with E&I, Sourcewell, and OMNIA. The cooperative comparison covers how the major options stack up.