The recession has certainly forced everyone to do more with less, but financial aid administrators are dealing with a new level of this challenge. As with all campus offices, financial aid office resources and funding are being frozen or cut due to tight campus budgets. In addition, financial aid offices are serving more students and families than ever before and administering record amounts of financial aid.
Articles: Enrollment & Retention
6/1/2010
In 2006, Northeastern University enrolled students from 42 countries, representing 4 percent of the freshman class. By 2009, the university had increased those numbers to 61 countries and 11 percent, along the way adding 932 new high schools sending students to Boston.
6/1/2010
Just for a day I became a student again, and the opportunity to learn from that perspective about the University of Idaho was priceless.
Student leaders extended an invitation for me to spend the evening and night in our residence halls, and that invitation was accepted because I thought it would be a unique experience. More importantly, I want to be grounded - aware of student wants and concerns - and represent them in a positive way as I move forward with university business.
6/1/2010
The 1798 poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge states, "Water, water everywhere / Nor any drop to drink."
6/1/2010
Mark Edlen, a Portland developer and businessman with Gerding Edlen, sees the commitment to sustainability as both a political movement and a business strategy, as noted in an April 14, 2010 article in The Oregonian. In explaining his new business approach, Edlen said, "The big thing for my generation was Vietnam and civil rights. For the young people of today, it's their environmental footprint." He is convinced the green economy is one of the country's primary economic engines.
6/1/2010
When colleges and universities start assessing their carbon footprint, the IT department is likely to come under fire by virtue of having oversight of much of the energy consumption on campus. Just how much energy do IT functions account for? At Harvard, for example, Sustainability Office Director Heather Henriksen says that IT functions--from data centers to network equipment to desktops and laptops--make up between 13 and 25 percent of the institution’s peak electrical load.
4/1/2010
The campus bookstore at Tallahassee Community College (Fla.) uncovered a problem in the course of its annual student survey. "What we noticed last spring was that more and more students were not buying textbooks, period," says Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Teresa Smith. "They told us that in our surveys. They wrote comments like, 'I just didn't buy my textbook this semester' or 'I borrowed the chapters I needed from a friend when it was time to study for an exam.'"
4/1/2010
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Last month I had the pleasure of participating in a "Meet the Media" panel at the 29th Annual CUPRAP (College and University Public Relations Association of Pennsylvania) Spring Conference at the Hotel Hershey.
4/1/2010
Tough Times for TRIO?
Concerns over level-funding leading to decrease in student support services
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During the annual National Student Leadership Congr |
4/1/2010
With rising student loan debt, a tough job market for recent graduates, and a tougher default standard higher education institutions will have to meet in 2014, strengthening default prevention efforts is an imperative. Yet it's not always clear what factors determine default rates and how much influence higher ed institutions have in keeping defaults low.
3/1/2010
Since the January 12 earthquake that decimated Haiti, U.S. colleges and universities have continued to carry out aid initiatives to support relief efforts. As would be expected, some of those efforts are more traditional (think fundraisers and collection drives), while others involve technology (including social media, websites, and wikis). Other institutions have taken more creative measures.
3/1/2010
The federal government is implementing a new method of assessing student loan default rates that will make it tougher for higher education institutions to remain eligible to receive federal student aid funds.
3/1/2010
To be or not to be? A college on the East Coast uses "The Place to Be!" as its tagline. And why not? Everyone has to be somewhere. But unless the school wishes to target modern-day Hamlets who haven't decided whether to be or not, it has zero impact.
3/1/2010
Talking about affordability can be a scary conversation for a recruiter. That is part of the reason more and more institutions have moved to transparent merit policies and other "entitlements" with clear eligibility criteria. But even if recruiters have these tools at their disposal, they still need to be able to talk with confidence about need-based aid and that is where it can get complicated.
3/1/2010
College admission is not on the same life-or-death scale as the Detroit underwear bomber, but it sometimes seems like it. Most recently, The University of Chicago's admission dean, James Nondorf, set off a mini-firestorm in December when he e-mailed an applicant's response to the "Why Chicago?" essay question to students nationwide.
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