Frederick, MD – Regent Education has announced support for the Department of Education’s Limited Direct Assessment Experiment via its industry leading financial aid management software, Regent Award. Regent Award is the only solution to offer full support for all enrollment models, including non-term and Competency Based Education (CBE).
In July 2014, the president passed legislation entitled the Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI). The included experiments test innovative practices in higher education that are aimed at providing improved, faster and more flexible paths to academic and career success. ESI provides the Department of Education the opportunity to waive certain statutory or regulatory requirements and then test the impact of waiving those requirements. However, the ability to support these initiatives can be challenging for institutions, as traditional financial aid management software cannot support this level of flexibility.
“These experiments require not only very sophisticated technology to be able to support them in an automated manner, but they also require an extremely in-depth understanding of federal financial aid regulations,” said Denis Khazan, CTO for Regent. “We have spent a significant amount of time analyzing the technical and operational implications. By leveraging the flexibility of the architectural design and the knowledge of our many subject matter experts, we are excited to announce our ability to support the Direct Assessment Experiment and are well underway in our analysis of supporting the CBE Experiment.”
“ESI has the potential to reduce costs for students and taxpayers while also providing students with more flexible learning options,” said Randy Jones, CEO of Regent. “We are pleased to be able to support the Department of Education’s goals by enabling institutions to participate in the experiments. Many of the thought leaders offering CBE and non-traditional learning models are Regent customers, so it is very important to us that we continue to innovate and deliver the most flexible and automated financial aid management solution in the industry.”
Regent has established itself as the leading financial aid software provider for schools offering CBE and non-traditional enrollment models, currently serving many of the leading CBE institutions. Regent is the financial aid solution provider for two-thirds of institutions offering Direct Assessment programs, and is the only financial aid software provider to fully automate non-term–the required enrollment model to participate in ESI. Non-traditional models are increasing rapidly, as less than 30% of students now meet the definition of a traditional student. Regent attributes much of its growth to the increasing number of institutions offering CBE and non-traditional models.
Regent Award is changing the way institutions process financial aid, giving them revolutionary and intuitive tools to automate and manage every aspect of the financial aid lifecycle-even for institutions with non-term, Borrower Based Academic Year (BBAY), and CBE models. Institutions have been hindered in their ability to offer nonterm enrollment models due to limitations with their financial aid management systems. With Regent Award, schools now have an option that will allow them to offer enrollment models that meets the needs of their institution and the students they serve.
To learn more about Regent Award, please visit: www.regenteducation.com.