INTEGRATING FINANCIAL AID
AND STUDENT ACCOUNTS
OCTOBER 21, 2014
LAKE PLACID CONFERENCE CENTER
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
PHYSICAL SPACE
Financial Aid
Office
• Separate offices
• Separate service
windows
• Separate phone line
• Separate web pages
Bursar/Student
Accounts
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
VP for
Student Affairs
VP for
Administration
FAO Director
Bursar/Director
of Student Accounts
Associate
Director
Financial
Aid Advisor
Calculations
Clerk II
Calculations
Clerk II
Financial
Aid Advisor
Financial
Aid Advisor
Keyboard
Specialist II
Keyboard
Specialist II
Calculations
Clerk II
Calculations
Clerk II
Calculations
Clerk II
CUSTOMER SERVICE
• Plagued by silos (“ours” and “yours”)
• Unnecessary phone transfers and walk-in referrals
• Multiple points of contact to answer questions
What’s the
intercollegiate
athletic fee?
Why don’t I
have workstudy?
What is a
subsidized
loan?
Financial
Aid
Why aren’t
my loans
deducted
from the bill?
Student
Accounts
How do I view
my bill and
choose
optional fees?
What’s my bill
balance?
Where is my
refund?
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
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?
INTEGRATION
• Original Plan
VP for
Administration
FAO Director
Bursar/Director of
Student Accounts
Associate
Director
Assistant
Director
Financial
Aid Advisor
Calculations
Clerk II
Financial
Aid Advisor
Calculations
Clerk II
Financial
Aid Advisor
Keyboard
Specialist II
Keyboard
Specialist II
Calculations
Clerk II
Calculations
Clerk II
•
•
•
•
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
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 integration
remains compliant
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
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
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
Financial
Aid
Student
Both Accounts
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
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
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