The challenged financial aid officer, 2004: financial aid officers anticipate their most daunting challenges for the coming year - On The Money

University Business, June, 2003

PRISCILLA PARKER, Associate Director of Financial Aid University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Chicago, IL

Student population: About 2,500

Primary lender: University of Chicago

"A major challenge for 2004 is financial aid for international students. International students cannot borrow any money in the U.S. unless they have a co-signer for a loan. Almost all loan companies require the cosigner to be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident currently living in the U.S. We have established a no co-signer loan, but we limit the amount a student can borrow because of the default risk. A company collecting on a loan can't sue international students, so, basically, an honor code is what drives them to repay the money they borrow without a cosigner. It's disturbing that due to the bad economy, international students cannot get jobs in the U.S.; they go home where they can't get good-paying jobs, so many are defaulting even after attending a top business school. We are going to explore more loan programs for international students. Our other concerns are increasing loan debt--specifically, the private alternative loan--and increasing tuition costs. We are trying to better educate students to live on a budget and not borrow as much. I hold information sessions with all my newly admitted students, at which time I explain to them what we do include in our cost of attendance, and what we do not include, such as cars. I tell them we have excellent public transportation. I explain to them that they have to live on a strict budget now and I give them examples of how to do that: shopping with cash, not a credit card; having one phone; eliminating cable TV. Many times, I have counseled students out of borrowing additional funds."

OTTO REYER, Director of Financial Aid Western University of Health Science, Pomona, CA

Student population: 1,400

Primary Lenders: WUHS

"One challenge we face is the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. My concerns are about increases in fees that might occur on the loan programs, changes in the school-as-tender program, reductions in campus-based programs and the Pell Grant, and changes in need analysis of financial need. Another challenge is the opening of a new College of Veterinary Medicine in August. To address these challenges, we will be staying in contact with House and Senate committees, and will give personal attention to all aspects of the new college with a counselor focusing specifically on new college issues. I've also been meeting with the dean and associate deans, as issues arise. We keep all staff informed of issues on the campus, not just financial aid issues."

BILL OSBORN, Dir., Student Financial Services College of Eastern Utah, Price, UT

Student population: 1,850 FTE

Primary lenders: Zions Bank and Wells Fargo

"We are facing a lack of adequate staffing, reduced current-expense funding, and a need for computer technology staff. There are also more students requesting re-evaluations based on special circumstances. These appeals require a great deal of additional time from counselors. I don't know how we're going to deal with these challenges, because each requires money and there is no new money in the state. I will do as we have done in the past, and that is, 'get by.'"

DANIEL L. GOYETTE, Director, Office of Student Financial Aid

Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

Student population: 7,300 traditional undergrads; 10,500 including professional/graduate programs

Primary lender: We are a direct lender; alternative loan programs through Citibank and Key Education Resources

"Our first challenge will be finding new sources of gift aid--scholarship or grant--to help families with growing costs of education. The second will be the need to do the first without adding to the already steep unfunded discounts (tuition revenue as the source) institutions are struggling to reduce. Despite economic downturns, we must depend even more on our fundraising colleagues to increase endowments and spendable income, thereby allowing us to increase funded tuition discounting. There will always be creative self-help sources of educational funding--whether student loans or other creative mechanisms that simply defer payback to some future time--but gift aid is a basic financial aid building block and the ultimate key to success in the recruitment game. (Although we have seen many cases of lost careers and other examples of economic upheaval among our families, the incidence of requests for additional gift assistance has not increased dramatically.) The third challenge relates to the training demands of an ever-increasing level of technology as required by our customers (students and their families) and financing partners (state and federal government in particular, but also private lenders, donors, and our institutions). Yesterday's guidance and counseling graduates who became financial aid professionals are finding themselves challenged to learn new skills. Our many professional associations offer an abundance of opportunities for training, in addition to what we make available in our offices. Our IT departments are a great source of technology training expertise. Unlike just a few short years ago, it is more common now to find financial aid professionals who successfully made the transition to technical slots in the aid office, as well as IT professionals (we just hired one in our office) who have become aid administrators. Another great source of training: the various user groups formed by institutions allied with specific software packages--NASU (for users of the Sigma's SAM) and HEUG (for PeopleSoft users)--are two. The main obstacle to participation in training is anemic operational budgets that force managers to decide who will and will not participate.