News
Providing stability amid uncertainty
By Justin Draeger
When the topic of financial aid is discussed, "easy" is not a term often spoken. Last year Congress complicated an already confusing set of federal student aid programs by enacting the TEACH Grant, Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income Based Repayment. These efforts may prove very useful for students . if they can figure out how to qualify for them. With today's student loan uncertainty added to the mix, it's no wonder students and parents sometimes view financial aid as "the great unknown." That's where the financial aid office comes in. "We need to be a source of stability and certainty for students," says Dewey Knight, associate director of financial aid at the University of Mississippi. "We need to help families know what the process is, how it's going to work, and to sort out the ambiguity they get from the newspapers." Knight's goal is to shed light on the process by making the financial aid office functional, fast and reliable.
War of words
Who really cares about financial aid until the reality of college tuition sets in? That means a lot of families wait until the last minute to prepare, and then they scramble to foot the bill. Where do they turn? Anywhere and everywhere, according to Knight. They notice stories about financial aid in the newspapers or TV broadcast. They talk with high school guidance counselors. They talk with friends who have kids already in college.
In many cases, families conclude that they won't qualify for aid. They come to assume it is only available to students with exceptional grades, athletic talent or poverty level incomes. As a result, they pay attention to direct-to-consumer marketing tactics used by private loan providers.
"Ambiguity and uncertainty can push students to direct-to-consumer loans that are handled outside of the financial aid office," says Knight, who believes that the financial aid office is in a constant battle with other sources of information-some credible and some not so credible.
"We need to stop families from making reactionary or fear-based decisions," he says. "We want students and families to come to the financial aid office first so they can have all the facts before making any college financing decisions."
That's goal requires both reach and grasp, but Knight is a realist. He knows that a financial aid office can inundate students with information, but they will never actually use his services unless it's easy for them to do so. "We must provide the type of customer service that makes it so they want to come here first," Knight says.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should
Technology enables a student to complete all the financial aid application work online without speaking to anyone in the aid office. But it should not necessarily be so, according to Knight. The University of Mississippi has self-service technology, but Knight says it's more important to have people available to work with students who have questions beyond automated processes.
All financial aid forms, professional judgment and satisfactory academic progress appeals, financial aid refunding and award letter processes can be performed online at Ole Miss. But as their students gained greater online access, the financial aid office saw more students calling or stopping in for assistance.
"No matter how much self-service we put on the web, the phone calls continue to increase," explains Knight, who realizes that no amount of self-service technology will diminish students' use of their cell phones. So recently, the financial aid and bursar offices began outsourcing all inbound phone calls to Global Financial Aid Services (GFAS), a company in Birmingham, Alabama.
Global sent a team of their own trainers to Ole Miss to be trained so they could train Global employees on how to handle calls. "We consider them an extension of our office," says Knight, who periodically listens in on calls being handled by GFAS. "I also see all of the inquiries that go unresolved. We look for recurring issues and make system changes accordingly."
After years of increases, the annual number of inbound phone calls has stabilized at about 110,000, with about 84 percent satisfactorily concluded by GFAS. "Now when students call, they always get a human being," says Knight proudly.
More than 25 percent of annual inbound call volume occurs in August and September. The financial aid office used to increase staff during that peak time. "It's difficult for us to expand our staff just for the month of August," says Knight. "But our contractors can do so."
Fifteen items or less
Knight has borrowed customer service ideas from other industries. For example, what is more frustrating than being in line behind a customer needing significant assistance, when all you need is a simple answer? If supermarkets have express lanes, why not the financial aid office?
Mississippi's financial aid office has an express lane from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm everyday. A graduate assistant greets all comers and filters students into separate lines based on their needs. Many simple matters are handled with dispatch by the greeter himself. More complicated questions are fielded by financial aid advisors or administrators.
The result is a near zero wait time in the financial aid office, even during the busiest seasons. "Our goal is to have everyone served within five minutes," says Knight. "Now students are more willing to come to us first."
Getting staff buy-in
The right staff is important, says Knight. He thinks campus departments who don't utilize student workers are at a disadvantage. Knight purposely hires graduate students, and he taps them for their opinions regularly.
Knight says the Mississippi staff is committed to "the student comes first," partly because the staff is so new. "Sometimes turnover can be a good thing," says Knight. "Having new staff means we can help shape their attitudes and together we can live out that philosophy. We have people who are energetic and excited."
Their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The financial aid office has raised the customer service expectations in other campus departments and offices. Students now expect the same level of service at the registrar's office, career center, bursar and from their academic advisors.