Students can insure that they don’t exhaust their eligibility for aid before they complete their academic program
Frederick, MD — Regent Education, the leading provider of financial aid management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for higher education institutions, today announced the capability to create a multi-year award package for students.
According to Dr. Neal Raisman, a leading researcher and consultant for higher education and business, “The second strongest factor in an attendance decision is: ‘Can I afford it’?”
Regent’s new multi-year packaging feature allows financial aid administrators to award a student once for their entire degree program and then to simply adjust the award package based upon changes in the student’s financial situation or enrollment status. This provides the student with a complete picture of the awards and/or loans that they can expect to receive over the full length of their program of study. It also allows the financial aid administrator to assist students with financial planning and debt management.
At the time the student is initially awarded financial aid, the system uses the student’s academic program, anticipated enrollment, prior coursework completed, and the current year FAFSA information to prepare a multi-year package of financial aid for the student which takes into account changes in eligibility based upon grade-level progression. This multi-year award package is then automatically adjusted based upon the student’s actual enrollment and annual changes in financial need resulting from future years’ FAFSA information. The student has immediate visibility to the information via the student self-service portal.
“The use of multi-year packaging can improve the effectiveness of debt management and student retention efforts, and assist students in insuring that they don’t exhaust their eligibility for aid before they complete their academic program,” said Leonard Gude, Regent’s Vice President of Financial Aid.
Dr. Raisman has predicted that financial aid is going to be the key to 9-13% of attrition in the future as the economy retracts taking student loans and aid with it. On his November 10, 2008 blog, Dr. Raisman reported, “If FA does not continue excellent service with early financial aid re-packaging for continuing students, students will leave.”
