Admissions definately starts out the positive relationship with the student so making that a positive experience is a great start and continuing the relationships throughout all departments is a key factor.
I like the fact tht you offer budget presentations, it's a great idea and something that will help the student throughout life.
Default Prevention is an ongoing effort by all departments at the campus. Admissions usually plays a major role since they are the first ones at the campus to start the relationship with the student. With Admissions backing up everything that we say in finance, the students respond rather well. Admissions has no issue with contacting students to assist us with getting the correct documents to process their financial aid. When the student realizes that Admisssions, career services and other departments all assist in getting financial aid ocmpleted, they take it very seriously.
The faculty are also completely on board with our efforts as well. At my campus, the financial aid office goes into the first quarter of every students class to present budget presentations. We start early on to teach the students, or remind them, of the skills that they will utilize when they enter repayment. The faculty also are on the look out for any issues or questions they here and communicate this back to finance so we can assist the student with getting the correct information up front.
Students come to our schools for an education that will enable them to have a successful future. Not all of that education happens in the classrooms. Student specific information cannot be shared in the classroom, but could discussions encourage the student to ask questions about their own account? What better way for them to learn about financial responsibility than through their own accounts with Financial Aid or the Student Accounts staff? This module states that the more students know about their loans and borrowing obligations, the better they will understand repayment responsibilities.
That is great that you have a good relationship with the faculty and admissions. Making it a team effort throughout the school is important and everyone has to know they play a vital part in ensuring the borrower's success which in turn ensures the school's success.
Our faculty allows us to go into the class to speak to students. Admission helps us by not giving financial aid information & if the students have any further questions they refer them to us.
I think that would could increase their involvement by putting more posters or hangout in their offices & in the classrooms.
Building a positive relationship with borrower is essential. Making the experience something good that the borrower will remember will make them more likely to ask for assistance if they get into trouble. I agree that knowing the staff was friendly and helpful throughout their education leaves them with a positive attitude upon leaving school and a sense of responsibility for meeting their repayment obligations.
Borrowers are people who need assistance to achieve their goals, and as such, like most of us they respond best when shown positive attention. Both the admissions and the faculty have opportunity to make a positive and helpful impression on the new borrower and when this is repetitive, it can make a lasting, uplifting memory for the borrower. This may be the strongest incentive for them to repay, as they feel both a sense of gratitude and responsibility for those who helped them to meet their goal. Also both the faculty and admissions can pick up helpful information as they nteract with the borrower and this can be valuable later if repayment becomes an issue. One of the most difficult items is to get accurate adresses and contact information which both faculty and admissions can assist in gathering. Later this can be most helpful.
We began a collaborative school-wide approach to default prevention last year. We conducted 5 corporate-wide webinar to educate campus directors on getting everyone involved. We are taking it to the next step this year to further enhance the program. Many of your posts are very valuable.
How many of you have full-time school-based default prevention specialists?
And, what are your plans going forward to move away from deferments and forbearances and to repayment?
Visual aids around the school are a great way to have a constant reminder about the importance of establishing good credit and paying your student loans.
Our Admissions shows a brief video describing the various financing sources and a high level of how each is obtained. Part of the course curriculum includes two life skills classes teaching many of the concepts described in the life skills section of module 1.
I think we can enhance things by having faculty allow FA brief class room time (maybe during breaks) to visit students in the classrooms rather than they just sending students to FA. Additionally, we need to have more visual aids around the school stressing the importance of loan payback.
Our Admission departments give them an idea of what they will be applying for; However they do not give amounts the Financial Aid will provide detail information.
Although I agree that default prevention should be a shared activity throughout the campus, at every institution I have worked at it falls on the Financial Aid office to admisnister and raise the red flag should something need to be done campus-wide.
At my current school, the admissions officers refuse to talk about repayment obligations because that is financial aid and they are not allowed to talk about financial aid. They are also not allowed to hand out FA information. As for the faculty being the best place to gather demographic data? It seems they are constantly contacting the FA Office to get updated info for times they have to contact students.
The extent of our campus involvement has been to contact the academic dept to get a room for exit counseling. It will be interesting to see if there is a shift in intitutional attitudes with the recent legislative changes that will make schools more accountable over a longer period of time.
We have recently added a new position to the financial aid dept, that of a default prevention specialist. With the creation of this new position it has risen the awareness of the importance of default prevention across the campus. The academic staff have worked with the finance department in order to allow finance to come into the classroom to do presentations about the students responsibility. Also as far as the Admissions team, we have always had a great relationship between the two departments which comprise the enrolement, so the transition from Admissions to Finance is not so jarring.
Being new to FA and starting off educating and creating relationships from the beginning is a positive way to start off on the right path. :)
At this branch campus, financial aid is relatively new. I think using the placement of posters and brochures will greatly improve the awareness. Keeping the importance of financial aid and the responsibilities that go with it, on the mind of the students is a great way to positively encourage compliance.
We have a very strong admissions team that works very well with the financial aid department. They understand the importance and the value of good counseling and awareness.
Collecting personal information and references is part of our admissions process. In addition, each term we have our students update their contact information; this is entererd and updated in our campus database that the administrative staff has access to.
Faculty are always more than willing to accomodate the FA office for counseling and required documents.
I think areas we can improve upon are providing more visual reminders for students and their repayment obligations such as posters, pamphlets, and additional documentation on managing student loans.
With Facebook and MySpace you need to be careful how you are using them. They are a great resource to use to locate students and if their profiles are public you can get phone number and email information that you can use, however contacting them directly through these sites can be considered spamming.
Another option is to create a page or a group where student can join or become of a fan of. There you can post general information not only about loans but other information pertaining to the school as well. It can be a great marketing tool as well. As students enter or leave school you can let them now that you have a page they can join.
All these sites have rules and regulations which you can get to find out exactly what they allow and what is prohibited.
I have to say at this moment I do not have an answer to your question. I have been advised by a guarantor to proceed with caution and check with our own internal counsel. What I want to do is provide general information and links for our students. However, when I asked the question are there regulations in place about using facebook or myspace the answer was no at this time they were not aware of any regualations prohibiting schools from providing links but to, as I stated above, proceed with caution and I have slowed down considerably. I am researching the information and if I come up with any helpful hints I will be more than happy to share.
I am very interested in how we too could utilize internet social networks like facebook to find elusive borrowers. One concern is that so many people can see what is on these pages. I am thinking we could use these networks to "fish" for people. Then, hopefully get a less public contact like email to discuss private loan information. Do you have any tips on how to figure out if you've found the right person and how to keep private matters private on places like facebook, myspace, etc?
We are trying to obtain provider information from our students to text-message them with important information. Also,I am currently working on a possible link on our facebook website as well. I have emailed many students but for some reason I have better success from my letters.
