Delaware Valley University

Challenge

Delaware Valley University's manual financial aid processes consumed valuable time and were prone to errors.

Results

• Surpassed an 80% open rate for financial aid communications during the 2023-24 academic year.
• Keeping students on track with simplified Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) appeal process.
• Giving staff more time for training and strategy with innovative self-service capabilities.

Summary

Delaware Valley University (DelVal) is a four-year private university located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees to a community of about 2,000 students. Financial aid is critical to student life at DelVal, with all freshmen receiving on average $28,000 in scholarship and grant awards for the 2023-24 school year.

Knowing the importance of getting money into its students' hands expediently, the school decided several years ago it was time to retool its more inefficient legacy processes.

"From the financial aid offer letter to the verification to the SAP process, everything was manually done," Brahim Bouidi, Senior Associate Director of Financial Aid, said. "And that's time consuming, with a large margin for error."

DelVal implemented a suite of Ellucian Student Financial Success solutions to redesign and simplify the financial aid experience for its students and staff. With Clear Cost, Campus Communicator, Scholarship Universe, and Student Forms, the institution now wields an integrated toolkit that has made positive impacts on recruitment, enrollment, and student access.

"The process completely changed," Bouidi said. "It makes it much easier for our office, much smoother. And it makes life much easier for students and their families as well."

Calculating the True Cost of Attendance

The first financial interaction that many students have with DelVal is through Clear Cost, Ellucian's web-based net price calculator solution that provides students with an estimate of the true cost of pursuing a degree at the university. According to Bouidi, when a student inputs accurate details about personal and family finances into Clear Cost, the result is an extremely strong indicator of what the actual price of attendance will be.

"It's mind boggling," he said. "When they put their information into Clear Cost, it is a 99.99% match with the financial aid offer we send out."

In addition to helping students understand the true cost of a DelVal education, Clear Cost also supports recruiting efforts at the school by creating an opportunity for staff to engage prospective students.

"That's been a very big help for our admissions office," Bouidi said. "They run their own report with whatever goes into Clear Cost, and they reach out to them to see if they are interested in our school."

Creating Financial Awareness through Effective Communication

When a prospective student is admitted to DelVal, they receive a financial aid offer letter. Leveraging Campus Communicator, Ellucian's student engagement tool, DelVal's financial aid office sends these letters via both text message and email to students and parents.

According to Bouidi, the use of embedded links in these communications enables students and parents to clearly navigate the complexities of financial aid in a way that they could not with traditional physical mail.

"The feedback that I've been getting from parents and students is that it's easy to read, and explains exactly what the estimate cost will be," he said. "I believe it makes it easier to make a decision to attend."

The admissions team at DelVal also tracks open rates with Campus Communicator and follows up when they see that a prospective student has not accessed their financial aid offer letter. Through this collaborative approach, DelVal was able to exceed an 80% open rate for the 2023-24 academic year. This increase in financial transparency has in turn directly supported enrollment efforts.

"A very large number of our students make their deposit through the link that we provide through the financial aid offer," Bouidi said. "We always hear good feedback from admissions that the link we have in our offer letter is working great. We send the letter, and the deposits start coming in."

Expanding Access to Internal and External Scholarships

Financial aid offer letters sent out through Campus Communicator also link to an external scholarship database that Ellucian's Scholarship Universe team vets and maintains, highlighting relevant opportunities for students to pursue additional aid. Scholarship Universe is Ellucian's scholarship management solution, and features a curated database of over 17,000 external funding sources.

Internally, Scholarship Universe also automatically matches admitted students with eligible institutional scholarships. Bouidi notes that this feature has enabled DelVal to administer nearly all available institutional scholarships, putting more dollars in students' pockets and minimizing unused aid at year-end.

"The feedback that I get from the two staff members that are working with the Scholarship Universe, it's amazing," he said.

Keeping Students on Track from Enrollment to Completion

After a student decides to enroll, Ellucian's Student Forms streamlines their progress through the financial aid process. For tasks such as verification—an auditing process that confirms the accuracy of information submitted on the FAFSA—students simply fill out an online template that outlines the exact documentation they are required to provide.

"We don't have to see them, we don't have to meet with them — it makes it much easier for the student," said Bouidi.

In addition to verifications, DelVal also leverages Student Forms to administer Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) appeals, which students must complete to maintain their federal financial aid eligibility. According to Bouidi, it is not uncommon for students to begin appeals within five minutes upon receiving these communications.

"It's a very large number of students that get right back on track," he said. "They open the letters, they have the link about the process, how to appeal, they know exactly what to do."

Student Forms also simplifies professional judgments, a feature that Bouidi says DelVal is hoping to take advantage of in the years ahead, in addition to several other projects planned to accommodate state-specific legislation in Pennsylvania.

A Comprehensive and Collaborative Approach

Integrating Clear Cost, Campus Communicator, Scholarship Universe, and Student Forms has given DelVal students a clear path to financial success, while enabling staff to work more efficiently and focus on high-level training and strategy. Bouidi adds that Ellucian's intuitive self-service features have also reduced student logistical questions.

"We have time to spend on a lot of other processes that we do for our office, versus time answering phone calls and emails," he said. "I think we are very, very happy. Myself and all my staff are very happy with the product."

Bouidi noted that much of DelVal's financial aid success stems from smoother cross-functional collaboration with admissions and other teams across campus, as departments can now access consistent information within the Student Financial Success platform. He also spoke positively of his experience working with Ellucian’s Student Financial Success team.

"I do appreciate them a lot," he said. "I cannot ask for better people than the ones that we've been working with."

The hard work of DelVal staff to support their students is paying off at the institutional level, with both U.S. News and the Princeton Review ranking Delaware Valley University among the best regional schools for 2024-25. With DelVal's demonstrated commitment to making college education practical and affordable for its students, the future looks bright in Doylestown.