When Tyson Cooper began working in student accounts 10 years ago, debt collection on college campuses was viewed as purely business and "a necessary evil," says the director of student financial services at the University of Southern Virginia. Today, with increased attention on student success and the long-term effects of unpaid accounts, institutions need to […]
Preparing for the annual audit can be one of the most stressful times of the year for university financial leaders. Some schools compound the challenges of the audit process by not adequately preparing. In these cases, schools are still working on the accounting books and schedules when the audit is supposed to start. This poses […]
The guiding principle for deploying new technology at the University of San Diego is simple: It has to improve the student experience. With that in mind, administrators there have developed an app store featuring apps that go beyond typical functions such as viewing course schedules. Two transaction-based features housed within its umbrella mySDMobile app are […]
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made national news when, standing beside senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, he announced in January the most recent in a growing number of free tuition proposals. Coming on the heels of similar proposals by Sanders, presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, Cuomo's "Excelsior Scholarship […]
A campus bookstore director relayed a conversation he’d had with the administrator to whom he reports. “I asked my boss whether he expected the store to generate as much profit as possible, or whether he wanted the store to ensure prices on course materials and other necessities were as affordable as possible for students.” The […]
MONTCLAIR, New Jersey—Montclair State had been a university for only a few years when Susan Cole took over as president in 1998. She wanted the job—her second presidency—because she saw vast, untapped potential on the campus of 12,000 students. She also felt certain that she could, pretty quickly, ensure the institution lived up to its […]
When campus marketing departments and admissions offices collaborate, valuable strategic alignments can be formed. Well-coordinated teams ensure that institutional branding messages speak to recruitment needs, while the recruiting messages encourage brand awareness and market penetration that resonate with faculty, staff and alumni. A shared reporting structure is one way to foster these alignments. Additionally, a […]
Keeping student tuition and fees down is the top priority for 2017 selected by campus CFOs and other finance department administrators in a UB survey—yet tuition revenue and nontuition student fees are the biggest anticipated funding categories for the coming year. Among the 64 administrators responding, 70 percent say these fees will increase modestly or significantly, […]
Ensuring students are prepared for college and then do well academically, emotionally, physically and financially are key goals of student success initiatives on campuses today. And these programs aren't on the minds of only administrators whose day-to-day jobs involve supporting students in these ways. Top institutional officials have student success on their minds—most of them […]
Enrollment management presents one of the most pressing challenges for many institutions in the current higher education landscape. Uncertain economic conditions, stretched institutional budgets, dependence on tuition revenue, increased competition for top students, and changing demographics have all intensified the need for effective enrollment strategies—and for exceptional managers to champion those strategies. As a search […]
