Finance/Advancement

There was just one problem with State University of New York at Cobleskill’s otherwise successful plan to boost revenue by focusing on noncredit-bearing professional education programs and community-based programming.

That was finding a better way to get students signed up for classes, yet one that was cost-neutral so as not to wipe out the revenue gains.

Picture two overworked accounting clerks, their desks completely covered in paper register receipts, and an accounts payable manager who needs a wheeled hand cart to deliver 5,000 paper checks to the mail room for distribution to students so they could buy books for classes. This is what the business office at Macomb Community College (Mich.) looked like prior to 2008, before the start of classes, says Bobbie Remias, director of finance and investments.