Is Your Financial Aid Management Software Holding You Back? Here’s How to Tell…
Financial aid offices are under immense pressure to streamline operations, maximize efficiency, and enhance the student financial aid experience in any and every way they can. But with dwindling budgets, persistent staffing gaps, and evolving student expectations, many financial aid departments are struggling to meet institutional goals. To improve operations, offices first must identify the factors that are hindering them. Is it understaffing? Inefficient technology training? Outdated systems? In many cases, problems with financial aid operations are a combination of these issues. Fortunately, updating technology may be a way to overcome all three challenges simultaneously.
When Should You Update Your Financial Aid System?
If you’re struggling to get personalized and competitive financial aid offers into student hands quickly, your legacy financial aid software might be the inhibitor. How can you tell if your financial aid system is holding your institution back? Here are some telltale signs:
Inefficient processes: Staff are entering data manually, relying on spreadsheets and causing processing times to slow down dramatically.
Poor student experiences: Students are inundating the financial aid office with queries, having difficulty accessing financial aid information, are confused about processes, and are missing deadlines.
Incompatibility with other systems: Staff are struggling with integrations. Trying to share financial aid information with other offices on campus is creating bottlenecks and headaches. Your financial aid system should seamlessly integrate with your other campus technologies.
Usability or training issues: New staff and student workers are finding it difficult to use the financial aid system. They are making frequent mistakes and getting frustrated.
These indicators and others like them may be a sign that you are leveraging financial aid software that doesn’t work for your campus. Your financial aid systems should not create bottlenecks, should encourage transparency and collaboration, and should be user friendly. If none of these descriptors sound true for your financial aid solution, then it may be time for an update.
Example of How a Modern System Can Solve Common Financial Aid Office Challenges
Fed up with being bogged down by integration issues, slow processing times, and frustrating user experiences caused by its legacy financial aid platform, one institution made the switch to Jenzabar Financial Aid. With Jenzabar Financial aid, this institution was about to dramatically increase staff efficiency, improve student agency and engagement, and accelerate financial aid processes across the board.
Click here to read the full story and to discover how Jenzabar Financial Aid can help you get competitive, comprehensive financial aid offers into student hands fast.
