Summer Tour Stop #7 Financial Aid

August  2-5^th, 2010

Apparently, our students are interested in Financial Aid!

The office is a busy place these days, with students streaming in to apply, check their status, provide additional documentation, and ask questions about all things Financial Aid.

"Our mission is to help students finance their education and teach them life skills necessary to live productive and meaningful lives while making a positive impact on their communities.

Financial aid consists of scholarships, grants, loans (which must be repaid), and part-time employment. Parkland College makes every effort within its means to help all students with limited financial resources secure the funds needed to complete their educational goals."

My first assignment was to spend time at the front desk, primarily with Chris Wilson. My goal was to listen to the questions and concerns our students posed to Chris and to learn from his response. I naively assumed that after a couple hours, I would be able to begin helping students myself.

In a relatively short period of time (about 5 minutes), it became clear to me that my goal needed some modification. Chris has encyclopedic knowledge of the entire process and the ability to multitask in a nearly supernatural way. Chris can be working with a student, watching another log in to begin a FASFA, and help me answer a student question with apparent ease. He is an amazing resource and wealth of knowledge.

After learning how to find information on the two most basic FinAid screens in Colleague, I set off to “triage” the line of students that invariably formed throughout the day.

To give you an idea of scale and scope, the department received over 2700 phone calls that one day. As of the time I write this, over $20MM in student aid has been awarded to 8208 students.

I had the opportunity, over the next few days, to observe the Advisors (Dawn Good, Haiti Eastin, Holly Pickowitz and Kristina Taylor) in action. Each of the Advisors has a particular specialty and each rotates through seeing walk-in appointments.

Stacy Bennett is responsible for verifications. Sounds simple enough, no?

Not so much. The Federal Government selects every third student to be verified, meaning that tax records, selective service status, and residency among other things must be proved by the student. This takes significant time and results in the long lines you see occasionally at the Financial Aid counter. Stacy has a big job.

Mary Liggett sits across from Stacy and is primarily responsible for phones and email. As I mentioned, the volume of phone calls each day is huge. In addition, there were some 86 email inquiries one of the days I was there. Of course, Mary Nicholas is there as well, helping out part-time with scanning of documents and other duties.

Between working the line, an Advisor meeting with Director, Tim Wendt and Associate Director, Pam Lytel, the time slipped by very quickly. I was also able to attend a Financial Aid appeals meeting, which very much reminded me of my days working with exceptions to academic policy.

Obviously, the Financial Aid Office is extraordinarily busy these days with more students applying for and receiving some sort of Financial Aid. My respect and admiration to Tim Wendt and his office for not only serving the volume of students they do, but for doing it so well.

Thanks to Financial Aid!