1. Become Responsible Borrowing Champions
MASFAA, November 2018

2. Responsible Borrowing Champions
Is your student population accustomed to receiving refund checks from their student loans? If so, there are several ways to impress upon students the long term consequences of borrowing above the cost of tuition. This session will examine how Southern New Hampshire University’s Student Financial Services department has educated and assisted thousands of students in decreasing their student loans by tens of millions of dollars in 2017 and Our approach includes counseling techniques as well as process and policy related changes.
Presenters: Susan Nallan, Nina Kumpu, Liane Roberts

3. Responsible Borrowing Champions
Agenda
Our Story
Who we are
Affordability
Counseling Tools
Training
Coaching
Operational Support
Analysis
Strategy
Policy

4. Our Story

5. Student Financial Services
Our Story
Student Financial Services
SNHU’s Global Campus
Over 100,000 online students (over 135k learners!)
Undergraduate: Average # courses enrolled per term: 1.4
Undergraduate Tuition rate = $960 X 1.4 = $1,344 per term average
Average refund: $871
Department
Student Finance Services

6. Our Story
ELF
Our culture of borrowing champions kicked off on 7/1/15 by banning word “Refund” as it did not connect the money the student receives to their borrowing habits. By using these deliberate words: EXCESS LOAN FUNDING, it is reinforced over and over that their refund is a result of their student loans.

7. Counseling Tools

8. New hire Ongoing QA Training Counseling Tools
Hiring focuses on customer service skills in addition to FA knowledge
During training, emphasis is placed on the complete lifecycle of the student, from application to graduation and repayment
New hire
Build knowledge and skills to deliver the right information at the right time
Provide SFCs with strategies that can be used in different conversations
First annual FinLitCon 2018
Ongoing
Measure delivery of information that has been trained
Inform new training needs QA

9. Coaching Counseling Tools Call Reviews Metrics Game
Fin Lit Focus Group
Recognition

10. Operational Support
Liane’s section

11. Financial Aid Risk Mitigation
Dedicated Resources
Key functions:
Secondary Confirmation (identity verification requirement)
SAP Appeal Committee involvement
Analysis of risky students
Loan decrease analysis

12. Policy Support Default C-flags Awarding methodology
PLUS/Alternative Loan Applications when federal loans are still available
Aggregate limits vs. credits earned used to assign outreach
Financial Persistence Plans

13. Loan Decrease Analysis
Criteria
We tally loan decrease figures if:
Interaction confirmed in CRM
Conversation was initiated by Student Finance Counselor
Loan decrease form was returned within 20 calendar days

14. Taking it to the next level
Looking to the Future
Taking it to the next level
Electronic forms
More dynamic award letters
Different forms of communication

15. Questions?