University Business - October 2011 - (Page 57)

At Monroe Community College, counselors at financial aid labs encourage students to complete the FAFSA when they enroll. lowing parents to import their IRS data will be helpful, but adds that “colleges tell students to fill out the FAFSA in January, when they haven’t done their taxes yet.” The streamlined form makes it easier to communicate with students about what is holding up their files, says Kimberly Westby, dean of student support services at Cerritos. However they are struggling to keep their systems up-to-date with changes in regulations. “We’re a community college and we’re very different from the CSU: a student can walk through the door today and fill out an application,” she explains. Vote Early, Vote Often Helping people understand they might qualify for aid and overcoming their fear of the application are key parts of the message financial aid offices are communicating early and often. “Make it part of the intake universitybusiness.com process and orientation,” Baime advises. Campus leaders have seen variables ranging from adult students who, while they didn’t qualify for aid before, qualify now because of life changes, or students who decide to enroll on the spur of the moment and don’t have all their documents in hand. St. Croix says Monroe students are encouraged to complete the FAFSA when they enroll. Every January, Westby uses Cerritos’ PeopleSoft system to identify students enrolled for the spring term and email them a reminder about the FAFSA. “The best time to have that conversation is when people are in high school,” says Draeger. He has seen communication efforts including attending local college nights, as well as reaching out to nontraditional students through state workforce and retraining programs. “I facilitate financial aid ‘step-by-step’ workshops at several high schools throughout our college district, and all are wellattended,” shares Cristina Arellano, Coastline’s EOPS (Extended Opportunities Programs and Services) recruitment staffer who also conducts many of the college’s outreach events. “While high school counselors understand the importance of FAFSA, students, and especially their parents, always want detailed instructions on how to apply and reasons for why it’s important. We just help the high school counselors communicate those message points to that group.” Baime says that, in recent years, counselors in the Connecticut Community College System would point out to students that they might qualify for a larger Pell Grant if they enrolled full time. “They had dramatic increases in the Pell received by their students; it doubled over a few years,” he notes. At Monroe, in addition to visiting high schools, nearly every student-facing department promotes the importance of filing for aid in their communications, ranging from letters to email and posters on campus to social media. The full court press paid off. “We found that we had more students through the pipeline in an earlier time frame,” says St. Croix. “We have more students packaged with aid than we did this time last year.” “We are particularly fond of web-based communication methods,” says Ma. “We can easily tweet out a message that ‘Scholarship applications are due Friday’ and include the link to the online application. We’ll see a surge of hits to our scholarships site that day, but then it dies off. When using social media, you have to realize that your tweet or Facebook post will soon be buried by thousands of others, so you need to post the same thing frequently for maximum effect.” “I think the students are receiving and responding to these communications,” agrees Westby. “During our early application period, we had almost 20,000 FAFSAs received. The word is out.” The Cerritos financial aid staff creates packages for more than 8,000 students in the first week of school and received more than 28,000 FAFSAs. October 2011 | 57 http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - October 2011

University Business - October 2011
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Cloud Email
Tuition Setting
Campus CFO
Independent Outlook
End Note

University Business - October 2011