I came into the financial aid business in a most unusual way. I didn’t want to be a director of financial aid (DFA). I had long planned to study for ordained ministry. That didn’t work out, and I went back to my alma mater for graduate work in public administration. I was able to negotiate graduate assistantships, one in undergraduate admissions and one (over two separate stints) in financial aid.
I thought I’d wind up working in local government while also adjunct teaching in urban studies and political science. But one day, the DFA for whom I worked directly as a graduate assistant put the Title IV administrative capability regulations in front of me and told me to learn them because I’d need them. I looked at him like he was nuts. We had never had a conversation about a career in student aid administration. But I later began to realize that in pursuing one I’d be applying my educational program work and that the field, in effect, is a form of ministry.
The Velcro dynamic—once on, it sticks—is an often-told story of how folks in student aid administration get recruited. Unfortunately, the story is also evidence of a lack of institutional commitment around strategically hiring for the profession. There is no educational field that provides a clear feeder into careers in student aid. There are some fields that greatly inform student aid: accounting, counseling, education, finance, public administration (my field). But nothing overtly prepares one for the multiple dynamics that a lead student aid administrator will face.
With this in mind, here are my suggestions for an emerging DFA:
Understand your system and its administrative capability.
A director of financial aid absolutely needs to understand the institution’s overall compliance position as the designated chief Title IV administrator. As there is a lot of change ongoing in student aid administration due to changes in organizational structures, the impact of the COVID pandemic and, more recently, the politics and logistics of the federal student aid process, there is a real need to think strategically about student aid administration and to ensure that it is true to its underlying tenets while also being compliant with statute and regulation. The director of financial aid must be the advocate, the catalyst, for this to occur.
Trust governmental agency partners, and, yes, even auditors.
Most folks I have met from governmental regulatory agencies and auditing firms are genuinely committed to helping people on campuses. They’re not the enemy; nor are they perfect. Frankly, there are times when you can teach them a thing or two (yes, I have receipts). Still, they can often help identify resources to help you. They can be your friend, especially if you are having problems within your institution on being heard about compliance matters. They can become part of your network.
Develop a network.
It would certainly be nice if every professional in this business had a professional mentor. From my graduate assistant work, I knew who I could call if I needed help—my own mentor, other higher ed administrators from my alma mater, folks in state government. This list later grew to include friends in the U.S. Department of Education, and colleagues at various other higher education institutions. In some cases, I “cold called”: I wrote to someone out of the blue and asked for help—sometimes these were people I knew of from their association with my mentor, other times it was someone I thought would simply be receptive to an inquiry. That was hard to do, being an introvert. In most cases, the response was affirmative. Most people in student aid administration whom I have asked for help were willing to do so because they realize that this business is complicated and can be lonely. So, work up the nerve and make that call or send that email. And if you get a call or email to this effect, respond to it.
Use listservs, but be strategic about it.
Reserve sensitive issues for direct communication with a colleague. Think about whether you can find the answer on your own. An internet search engine can absolutely be your friend. A colleague once snarkily responded to a post, “Let me Google that for you.” I admit I laughed, as I understood the sentiment. I’ve used the finaid-l listserv for 30 years, and my reputation in student aid circles is somewhat associated with it. I get, “Oh, I know you from finaid-l” all the time. I’ll take it. It’s a valuable resource, as are other listservs. In addition to getting answers, listservs help you develop a network.
Read.
I mean this very seriously. Too many people in this business are desperate to “get the handouts” from webinar or conference presentations rather than reading the details of a statute or a regulation (or especially the development of such). Though The Federal Student Aid Handbook traditionally has been a good teaching resource, its reformatting in recent years—ugly and uninviting—has weakened its utility. Read books and articles about the development of student aid as a profession or issues in student aid administration such as those by Rupert Wilkinson or Elizabeth A. Duffy and Idana Goldberg, as well as the excellent book published this year by Stephen J. Burd on the enrollment management industry, and, very importantly, Anthony Abraham Jack’s two books that focus on inequities in higher education student services.
Research by higher education economists Sandy Baum, Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton are essential reading. Writings about socioeconomic issues in the United States from the likes of Anthony P. Carnevale, Matthew Desmond, Kathryn J. Edin, Barbara Ehrenreich, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Stephanie Land, and Caitlin Zaloom greatly inform student aid policy and administration. And critical to your work as a DFA is understanding the regulatory and rulemaking process. You should get The Federal Register release daily via email and understand what is published. Rebecca Natow’s recent publications on higher education rulemaking are absolutely essential reading.
Read association content widely.
Ask your business office to provide you with access to the NACUBO (National Association of College and University Business Officers) website through the institutional membership. Ask the same of whomever may manage your institution’s AACRAO (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers) and NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) institutional memberships. Read American Council on Education content. Absolutely do NOT rely on one professional association source. Leverage content from associations outside of student aid, such as AACRAO’s Registrar 101 program and their FERPA resources, NACAC’s Fundamentals of College Admission Counseling, or NACUBO’s Bursar Fundamentals and Student Financial Services programming, and get staff working with you to do the same. Restricting yourself only to the student aid bubble, frankly, is myopic. Resist this because doing so will help to escape the unfair pigeonholing that unfortunately goes on in higher education, whereby people see student aid on your résumé and mistakenly think that’s the only thing you can do.
Read multiple news outlets.
I have long relied on news aggregators, and then, of course, professional associations also have their own news blasts that link to articles of interest. I prefer the one from SHEEO (State Higher Education Executive Officers Association) because it provides links to research and to government reports that other association news blasts do not necessarily provide. Social media is quite useful in terms of staying on top of the news; I’ve also used social media to make cold contacts. Higher education economics social media has been extremely helpful and responsive to me in this way. Every higher education economist I have ever contacted has responded to me—which, frankly, along with feeling that behavioral economics is an important variable impacting student aid, is why I developed interest in that field during my career.
Demand investment and be committed to organizational development.
Here’s an inconvenient truth: Title IV regulation requires administrative capability and among the many requirements of administrative capability is that of availability of adequately trained staff. It’s your responsibility to continually remind your institution of this requirement and the fact that auditors and program reviewers will test for compliance. Develop a list of programs from the Department of Education, states, professional associations and other avenues to help you and your staff not just with programmatic compliance and administration but with practical human resources needs. Investment in your own professional development while advancing the work of the organization are concomitant needs because, and I mean this respectfully, upper-level higher education administration typically considers student aid too arcane, too specific and narrow, and oftentimes doesn’t want to touch its specifics with a ten-foot pole.
As someone whose initial professional aim was for church vocations, in many respects I view the financial aid profession as a calling to speak truth to power about ethical decision-making and choices for nonusurious higher education financing. Many folks in student aid administration are simply afraid to speak out about how politics and policy have put them uncomfortably in the middle, and to speak out on what exactly they need. I regret the mindset that seems to dominate in higher education administration that student aid is predominantly about systems, programming and portals, as the proliferation of electronic tools has had the effect of minimizing direct communication with students; this mindset has marginalized the commitment to counseling, which is supposed to be the primary consideration of a student aid operation and is required by regulation. I strongly believe that we must recapture this in the profession. The DFA must be the catalyst for promoting ethical, well-resourced and student-centered postsecondary financing policy and services.