I really like the idea of having Admissions get references. We are not currently doing this but by the end of today we will be.
Also the life skills class is something I am going to talk to the Director about. This is something I can teach as I cam from a banking background.
It is great to have admissions be aware of the important part they play in collecting good information. Students may be more comfortable providing good references when it is part of the enrollment process.
Social networking is a great tool to keep in touch with students and to get updated information. Also, having them create a profile on a more professional site such as Linked In would be beneficial to the student and still allow you to gather new information.
In our intuition we have a third party servicer working with our prevention default as well as someone on campus who tries to track our former students. We also have both financial aid and admissions collect references to help us get in contact with our students if they are considered a “skipâ€. Another thing that I have notice is that now with all this networking a great way to keep in contact with students is Facebook. Some of our students inform us with their updates or any changes thru our website or Facebook page.
I think that is a great idea. Putting it all into a spreadsheet will keep the data organized and easy to find later.
Well FA helps me by doing the exit interview and scan it and they send it to me with this i put this infomation in a excel spreadsheet for each month of the year.
Great job putting in the effort to keep contact information up to date while they are in school. Keeping this data current and staying in touch after they leave school will let them know you are there to help.
In our instritute, the information is collected by both the admissions and financial aid departments. We also have form available to collect such as address and phone number changes and our entire staff in to get involve and we keep current update in default prevention
Sandra, this is a great example of communication and interaction between departments. Great work on being proactive and involved!
That is great to hear! It is so important that everyone in the school knows they play a part in default prevention and borrower education. Helping the borrower be successful in turn helps the school keep default rates low.
We are keeping all department areas involved in default management and we open workshop to educate student how important for them to repay their loan
We are still working on getting the faculty and admissions offices to contribute to our institution's default prevention. We will discuss in our meetings about how we can increase everyone's involvement. As of right now, our Financials and Admissions offices are constantly communicating with each other regarding our active students which creates an organized environment for both offices so everyone is aware about each student's situation.
That is great the your rates are trending down and that management has taken notice. Adding additional steps to what you are already doing will only help that further. Realizing the importance of having the whole school involved and working towards that goal will help you achieve even more success.
You have a great attitude and understanding of the debt the borrower is taking on. I think it is great that you look at the importance of the borrowers overall financial health and work with them to help them understand it. Your efforts in the beginning are what will lead them to successful future.
This was a great post!
I feel that a fundamental change in paradigm with default prevention has to come from the top-down. If the president's office is concerned, things suddenly begin to happen.
Thus far, the school as a whole has not been involved with default prevention measures. Recently, however, upper management has begun to take note of the downward trend in our cohort default rate. I hope this will make it easier to implement some changes mentioned in the modules.
We have come a long way with inter-functional communications, specifically Admissions and Financial Aid, but I feel like so much more needs to be done. As financial aid officers, we see things from our perspective that Admissions is not privy to; therefore, I think our input as to the financial health of a student should be taken seriously as a factor to grant or deny admissions. We are a chiropractic school - our cost is high and the commitment is all-encompasing. Finances can make or break the student's experience, particularly if they have a family.
For example, it seems to me that coming to school to get a cost of living stipend is more important to some students than actually becoming a chiropractor. This is a red flag, and I'm not implying that admission should be denied to that sort of student, but I feel there should be safeguards in place to dig a little deeper before granting admission. I don't like setting up a student for failure.
The faculty's involvement is practically nonexistent. I got some really good ideas from this module to suggest. We have already implemented USA Fund's Life Skills program. This is a good first step to bring awareness of this issue to the college as a whole.
Ensuring you have all the data at the beginning is definately important should the person become a drop. Continual updates and verifying the reference information they provide is extrememly helpful in locating the student after they have left school.
Mary,
The admissions department in the process of enrollment and classroom faculty should keep most current student information such as:
Permanent Address
Temporary Address
Email Address
Home Phone
cell phone
Emergency Contact
References
So contribute to the location of the student by providing this information to the default prevention in the event that the student does not continue with their studies temporarily or permanently.
It sounds like you have a very good process in place which utilizes both visual and audio learning.
Framed posters that explain borrower rights and responsibilities are posted for students. FA sits with students and goes over the loan documents with each potential student. They also discuss default and repayment of student loans. All potential students that go through FA receive a folder with all documentation regarding their loans and other information. The Business Office can continue to speak to students about repayment, when they must begin paying on the student loan and the importance of paying the loan.
Faculty does not necessarily need to discuss FA but should be prepared to at least refer the student to the FA office if they seem to have questions and concerns. They need to realize that the students success in repaying their loans and not defaulting affects the entire school and it needs to be a group effort.
A great idea- our admissions and financial offices are also side by side and we jsut need to consistently work to keep both updated
It is difficult to always have faculty involved positively in discussion of financial aid- some of them may be somewhat negative about the repayment- even though it provided them with a career of good salaries
