A Guide for CIOs Cultivating Student Financial Success

It has become clear that what was once viewed as a slate of “temporary challenges” due to the pandemic are now permanent fixtures and challenges in higher education. Hiring and retaining employees has remained difficult, employees and students want in-person and remote options, and people are, once again, being asked to do more with less.

Add to these challenges the unknowns around student loan forgiveness, financial aid fresh start, FAFSA simplification, the FUTURE Act, and the demands on aid offices across the country may push them even closer to their breaking points. This is a dire situation for those who know the biggest barrier to college enrollment and completion is the financial friction that students face when shopping for and financing their degree.

These challenges are so pervasive that they can no longer be tackled in siloes. Aid offices must collaborate with the CIO who has the means and influence to help them address the number one barrier for students—financial friction—and strategically slay the enemy standing in the way of Student Financial Success.

Directors of financial aid have insider information for CIOs about the first steps you can take in building and strengthening your relationship with financial aid. This partnership has the ability to transform your entire campus and deliver on the promise of higher education for more students each year.

The aid office, which is regularly engrossed in relationships and discussions with teams across enrollment management, student services, advising, and finance, often misses the value of partnering with the CIO. Three of the best strategies to reduce financial friction and increase enrollment, retention, and completion can be brought forth with this partnership. The CIO has tremendous influence over streamlining processes and deploying automation to cut through complexity while personalizing engagement to show students a clear and guided path to pay for their degree. CIOs know the single best way to implement these strategies is through the right approach to technology.

Educause recently wrote about the evolving role of the higher education CIO and discussed “changing the trajectory of IT value from infrastructure management to innovation management.” It’s been written that CIO responsibilities now include “harmonizing both operational and strategic IT priorities.” As most institutions embark on a journey to reimagine the delivery of higher education and ensure equitable access to students regardless of financial background, a commitment to Student Financial Success could see no better advocate than the CIO.

Cut Through Student and Staff Complexity With Simplification and Automation

As aid offices look to reduce friction for students, one of the first levers that should be pulled is to simplify the processes they currently have in place. This critical step toward simplification starts with looking at systems and identifying redundancies. These systems and workflows need to be evaluated for opportunities to optimize the student experience and remove the unnecessary steps that cause delays and increased effort for students and staff.

Imagine a student logging into a dynamic document collection portal from their phone. It can read both the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) prebuilt with the federal requirements for verification and document collection. A thoughtfully designed task list allows the student to identify and securely upload documents, electronically sign forms, and submit them to the aid office for review.

Built-ins include reminder communications and updates delivered through email and text (a capability not often available to aid offices). Files are delivered to aid officers through a workflow and review interface designed to highlight key areas for review and potentially conflicting information.

Legacy systems have often seen multiple owners, and full capabilities may not be recognized or utilized. Understanding options and opportunities for automation to reduce staff workload and processing times is a universal win for institutions across the country. Financial aid offices are filled with people who make things work with whatever they have on hand. But a better partnership with the CIO and their understanding of the business needs in the aid office may reveal new functionality or existing tools and resources already available within the institution that yield a better experience for students and staff.

Chart personal paths to graduation

Netflix has created an intolerance for brand engagement that does not recognize who customers are and what is important to them, and then show them a clear value. Customers want to feel heard, seen, and connected. Financing is the single greatest barrier to college enrollment and completion. That is because the experience is overwhelming, complicated, one-size-fits-all, and filled with unexpected challenges.

Creating a highly personalized engagement strategy for students can address all these challenges. Colleges hold a lot of data about every prospective student who submits an application. But getting access to that data can be difficult and cumbersome, which makes it less leverageable by the aid office. A shift to understanding and utilizing this data ensures students get relevant information just in time and creates an affinity with an institution that knows its students.

Imagine a financial aid offer delivered as a personalized web page to the student. Hover text and expandable sections allow for a deeper dive into information about renewal criteria, interest rates, and obligations to repay. Video content is available on the page with short explainer videos based on the funding options a student has within their aid offer. And on the bottom of the page, an AI-powered virtual advisor can answer basic questions students have with the ability to hand students off to a counselor when more complex advising is needed.

Personalization also requires us to know what channels students use to engage with the institution. Visual mediums rule the minds and hearts of many, and colleges need engagement that takes cues from YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram. Often, schools lack a dynamic visual content management library and storage location that allow for easy use and implementation into communications and engagements. Flat communications are out. Personalized and dynamic video content are in: They grab attention and deliver messages. But the infrastructure to both identify the audience and deliver the messages to students’ hands in a scalable way requires innovative use of technology resources.

The CIO has been charged with creating a new world of technological engagement for students, staff, and alums. They are persons of influence and innovation on campus with additional resources that, when tapped into, can revolutionize the way aid offices interact with students. Simultaneously, CIOs have the influence to improve the lives of the dedicated staff members tackling the financial friction that is delaying and derailing up to 3 million students each year.

Learn more about building a foundation for Student Financial Success.