october 21, 2014 lake placid conference center integrating financial aid and student accounts
TRANSCRIPT
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O C T O B E R 2 1 , 2 0 1 4L A K E P L A C I D C O N F E R E N C E C E N T E R
INTEGRATING FINANCIAL AID AND STUDENT ACCOUNTS
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PRESENTERS
• SUNY Plattsburgh• Todd Moravec, Director of Student Financial Services• Gregory Withrow, Bursar/Director of Student Accounts
• Clarkson University• Pamela Nichols, Director of Financial Aid• Amanda Pickering, Bursar
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PHYSICAL SPACE
Financial Aid Office
Bursar/Student Accounts
• Separate offices • Separate service
windows• Separate phone line• Separate web pages
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ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTUREVP for
Student Affairs
FAO Director
Associate Director
Financial Aid Advisor
Financial Aid Advisor
Financial Aid Advisor
Keyboard Specialist II
Keyboard Specialist II
VP for Administration
Bursar/Director of Student Accounts
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
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CUSTOMER SERVICE
• Plagued by silos (“ours” and “yours”)• Unnecessary phone transfers and walk-in
referrals• Multiple points of contact to answer questions
FinancialAid
Student Accounts
What’s the intercollegiat
e athletic fee?
How do I view my bill and
choose optional fees?
What’s my bill balance?
Where is my refund?
Why don’t I have work-
study?
What is a subsidized
loan?
Why aren’t my loans deducted
from the bill?
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OPERATIONS
• Lack of collaborative planning and implementation• Lack of understanding policies and procedures
and rationale behind them (“ours” and “yours”)• Operations generated unnecessary phone calls
for other office
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OFFICE MORALE
• Tension between office staff and directors• Problems tended to be resolved by going up the
chain of command rather than with one another• Examples: ours and yours• Students and families caught in middle
sometimes
Same team?
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INTEGRATION
VP for Administration
FAO Director
Associate Director
Financial Aid Advisor
Financial Aid Advisor
Financial Aid Advisor
Keyboard Specialist II
Keyboard Specialist II
Bursar/Director of Student Accounts
AssistantDirector
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
CalculationsClerk II
• Original Plan• Merge offices on one floor• One set of windows• One phone number• One set of web pages
• Student Financial Services
• Did not happen
• Secondary plan was to integrate behind the scenes
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BLUE BOOK: VOLUME 4
• Federal regulations require a school to separate the functions of authorizing payments and disbursing funds so that no single office or individual exercises both functions for any student receiving FSA funds
• Ensure integrationremains compliant
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INTEGRATION
• Combine staff meetings• Originally every two weeks• Started to discuss operational issues with each other• Started to understand other office’s polices and procedures• Helped each other develop reports to solve operational issues• Introduced goal of minimizing referrals and single point of contact
service
• Updated policies and procedures• How do we achieve operational goals while minimizing office volume
for both offices, not just one?• Identified policies and procedures that caused problems for other
office• Reviewed and updated these when appropriate• Decision made considering impact on both offices
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INTEGRATION
• Share technology• Financial Aid got view access to bill screen• Student Accounts got view access to aid & requirements
screens• Cross-trained each other during staff meetings• Combined our notes screens (R2T4 example)• Share office calendar• Shared “social” events
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CUSTOMER SERVICE
• Both offices started to answer questions that would have been transferred in the past
• Both offices expanded the scope of questions that could be answered by their staff
• Reduced phone transfers and referrals • More single point of contact service
FinancialAid
Student AccountsBoth
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OFFICE MORALE
• Dramatic improvement over the years
• Worked through issues during staff meetings and workgroups
• Staff had a better understanding of other office
• Empowered staff to answer a broader range of questions
• More compliments from students and families
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ONGOING ISSUES
• Financial aid staff answers a broader range of questions than Student Accounts due to the heavily regulated nature of financial aid
• When it gets busy, staff can revert to old ways
• Separate offices remains confusing for some students & families
• Union issues
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SUMMARY
• Successfully integrate without having to physically merge Financial Aid and Student Accounts• Achieve this by integrating back-office functions
and cross-training• Combined staff meetings (frequent at the beginning)• Updating polices and procedures together• Sharing technology
• Improve services that both offices provide to student and families