Unlocking the Black Box: Insourcing Your Financial Aid Optimization Strategy
inancial aid leveraging has become a big business in higher education; with vendors collecting millions of dollars each year from colleges that are looking to optimize their limited financial aid budgets. Further, these heavily guarded, proprietary, and one-size-fits-all methodologies have led to less than desirable enrollment and financial outcomes.
A perfect storm of pressures including, but not limited to, the pending demographic cliff, frequent news coverage reporting that enrollment leaders are feeling more dejected than ever, the aftermath of COVID and the Great Resignation are pointing to the fact that something has got to give. Enrollment managers must take back control of the things that they can and move on from outdated and outmoded practices that simply add cost, reduce efficiency, and add stress to an already overwhelming process.
Samford University has taken huge steps to “insource” one of the most important aspects of their recruitment and retention efforts; their financial aid optimization strategy. This presentation will outline the steps they took to accomplish this, leading to a financial aid awarding strategy that is more straightforward and over which they have more control.