WASFAA - Western Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators

April/May 2002

Online Publication

As we progressed through this process, an awareness of the importance of financial aid began to surface among all players in the recruitment/retention game.

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Enrollment Management and Financial Aid
by Barbara Burnett, University of Alaska Southeast

In the late 1990's, after several years of declining enrollment, the administration of the University of Alaska Southeast agonized over how to stop the downward trend and to increase enrollment. Staff from all segments of campus - Student Services, Faculty, Records and Registration, the Business Office, Student Activities and Housing, and the Chancellor's Office - got together many times and brainstormed different possible solutions. We came to the conclusion that we needed help, and we contracted with an enrollment management consulting firm.

These consultants formed work teams, analyzed the procedures currently in place, and talked to everyone on campus. Slowly but surely, a plan of action emerged that involved enlarging our potential student pool and sending out, on a regular, sequential basis, professional material related to the steps that student applicants move through. As we progressed through this process, an awareness of the importance of financial aid began to surface among all players in the recruitment/retention game.

Even though the University of Alaska Southeast began the analysis process, the information we discovered was shared with the other two main administrative units of the University of Alaska (Anchorage and Fairbanks) and with the University of Alaska's President's Office. Personally, I was thrilled when our President became a champion of financial aid and began to emphasize, every chance he got, the importance of keeping the Financial Aid Office involved in all activities geared toward attracting and retaining students.

The process is still evolving, but we are making progress. We have formed an Enrollment Management Core Team composed of the Dean of Students, the Vice Provost for Student Success, the Registrar and Director of Admissions, the Director of the Academic Computing Center, the Coordinator of Recruiting, and the Director of Financial Aid . We meet bi-weekly (down from weekly) to discuss how all of our processes and procedures are working. We all feel welcome to give input and feedback on all areas of student recruitment and retention, and have come up with some unique, integrated solutions and processes.

We are working to consolidate our idea of the type of student we want to attract, and to develop a plan for how we want to use our limited financial aid dollars to bring in new students and to retain the students we have. At this time, the latter is somewhat a moving target and a work in progress, but at least we are all talking about the same issues. There have been times in this process that staff defenses have risen - no one likes to change procedures that feel comfortable and familiar. However, we seem to be moving past this resistance to change and most staff are starting to embrace the challenges of enrollment management.

The consensus of everyone involved is that financial aid is a critical component of enrollment management. The total amount of aid offered, the mix of aid offered, the timing of the aid awards, and the remaining unmet need all figure decisively into a student's decision to attend and to remain at an institution. Of course, if the academic programs and services available to students fall short of a student's expectations, the financial aid factor will not be able to overcome his/her decision to attend elsewhere. However, the best academic programs and student services cannot overcome insufficient financial aid. Definitely, this is a complicated process!

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