A student received an outside scholarship and expected to see it reflected on their account. Instead, the funds were delayed, applied incorrectly, or in some cases duplicated. When errors surfaced, staff had to step in to manually fix records, and occasionally students were asked to return funds they were never meant to receive.
As more situations like this came up, it became clear the issue was not isolated. The outside scholarship process relied heavily on a shared spreadsheet, multiple handoffs between Financial Aid and Student Accounts & Receivables, and repeated manual data entry. This led to common issues such as incorrect IDs, duplicate postings, wrong term splits, and delays when checks sat unprocessed or donors resent funds.
The team partnered across Financial Aid, Student Accounts & Receivables, and IT to understand where the breakdown was occurring. Key gaps included inconsistent student-reported information, limited visibility across teams, and a process that required the same data to be interpreted and re-entered multiple times.
To address this, the process was redesigned to better align with how financial aid is managed. Ownership of outside scholarship posting shifted to Financial Aid, allowing the team closest to the award to manage it end-to-end. A group-post file approach is being implemented so scholarships can be prepared and uploaded in batches, reducing handoffs and eliminating duplicate data entry.
The result is a more streamlined and reliable process that reduces errors, shortens processing time, and improves coordination across teams while creating a better experience for students.
Fellow Change Agents:
- Mary Frances Riner
- Mandy Tucker
- Olivia Vaca
- Stephanie Covington
- Jasmine Moore
- Dee Anna Rendall
- Angie Dopp
- Bria Cruse
- Amanda Cushing
- Ester Cha Juarez
Impact of idea:
Eliminating duplicate data entry and reducing handoffs between teams decreases the likelihood of incorrect IDs, duplicate postings, and misapplied funds, saving time spent identifying and correcting errors.
