The return on investment in verification services comes in multiple layers from increased customer service to saving money, time and increasing enrollment. Steve McDowell, the Associate Vice President for Financial Aid Services and Title IV Compliance for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) joined us for a NASFAA FABS webinar and explained how he made the decision to incorporate verification services and the impact it has had on reducing melt, working through staffing challenges, managing expenses and increasing verification completion for CSCU. Listen now.

FAFSA completion signals the intent of students to attend college, and can help you predict enrollment. Even though the rates of completion among the high school class of 2021 have increased in the last few months, recent stats from NCAN’s Form Your Future show FAFSA completions are still down 10.1%, from 2020.

Without the ability to see students face-to-face, pop into a classroom, or post a sign, FAFSA completion suffers unless we adopt new outreach strategies. Replacing gentle reminders with personalized, specific communication promotes completion and provides connection; Inceptia’s FAFSA Completion Outreach program does just that. Through a variety of methods, our student advocates will reach out to students to help them see the value in completing the FAFSA and answer questions along the way.

The longer breaks that students have been experiencing can cause “melt” for prospective, current and withdrawn students. The FAFSA Outreach and Student Outreach Programs can help you connect and even re-engage with students to provide supportive options to encourage FAFSA completion to help you reach your enrollment goals.

Extra communication requires extra tools and tactics. Check out our free FAFSA Toolkit containing checklists, letters and emails, posters, and videos ready for you to share with students and families.

For additional details, contact our Client Support team or your Inceptia Business Development representative today.

Phew! You made it through 2020 and now you’re on to the first semester of 2021. As you look ahead and continue to adjust your processes this year, preparing for the potential increase in professional judgment and SAP appeals is essential – are you ready?

Developed with the student and administrator in mind, Inceptia’s PJ Advisor and SAP Advisor solutions are easy to use with intuitive questions and step-by-step instructions to capture each specific situation. Both solutions fit today’s environment and are available on any device, wherever and whenever, for the student and for your team to review and approve.

To learn more about streamlining your appeal processes visit the PJ Advisor and SAP Advisor pages for further information. You can also contact a Business Development representative in your area to schedule a meeting today!

Many conferences remain virtual this season and despite not seeing you face-to-face, we hope to talk with you!*

FAFSA completion serves two key functions: it signals the intent of students to attend college, and helps schools predict enrollment. It is alarming, then, that at two months into the new FAFSA cycle, completion rates are being noted as a "slow-motion train wreck for college enrollment and students’ futures". Most recent stats from NCAN’s Form Your Future show FAFSA completions are down 15.5% for the high school class of 2021, from the last academic year – a slight improvement within the last month.

Without the ability to see students face-to-face, pop into a classroom, or post a sign, FAFSA completion suffers unless we adopt new outreach strategies. Replacing gentle reminders with personalized, specific communication promotes completion and provides connection; Inceptia’s FAFSA Completion Outreach program does just that. Through a variety of methods, our student advocates will reach out to students to help them see the value in completing the FAFSA and answer questions along the way.

Because students may need multiple reminders to make the message “stick,” we also offer our free FAFSA Toolkit containing checklists, letters and emails, posters, and videos ready for you to share with students and families.

Finally, a longer-than-usual holiday break can cause “melt” for prospective, current and withdrawn students. The FAFSA Outreach and Student Outreach Programs can help you connect and even re-engage with students to provide supportive options to encourage FAFSA completion and also re-enrollment with your institution.

For additional details, contact our Client Support team or your Inceptia Business Development representative today.

With a population of roughly 40,000 students, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) financial aid team needed a verification platform that could handle a high volume of verifications, was efficient for students and families and provide workload relief for staff.

CSCU implemented Verification Gateway to streamline the federal verification process for their students. The interview-style questions, virtual document collection, complete reporting and personal interaction when needed, offered CSCU the help they wanted.

• Two-day turnaround of verified records
• 50% average decrease in time from first ISIR to verified
• 28% average increase in completed verifications
• 29% average decrease in verifications completed 14 days prior to semester
• 38% average decrease in verifications completed 7 days prior to semester
• 15% average increase in packaging rate by first day of classes

“It was a welcomed relief for Inceptia to take over verifications so our teams could provide both a greater focus on community outreach and training activities for staff,” said Steve McDowell, Associate Vice President for Financial Aid Services and Title IV Compliance. Read more.

NEFE recently announced their financial literacy program, CashCourse, will be retired at the end of the current academic year. For the colleges and universities relying on this program to fulfill their financial education goals, Inceptia invites you to explore our program, Financial Avenue, as your new financial education curriculum.

Learn More About Financial Avenue

• Review our Learning Objectives
• Request a demo account
• Register for our virtual demo on Tuesday, December 8 at 1:00 p.m. CT
• Hear what students and staff at the University of Nebraska Kearney enjoy most about using Financial Avenue

We know that budgets may be limited, so please contact us to discuss pricing. We look forward to working with you in finding a new solution to meet your financial education needs.

The CARES Act student loan repayment suspension is set to expire December 31, 2020, and there are still many questions. Without thoughtful planning, it’s going to be a challenging return for students and schools, but there are ways to ease the stress.

There are still opportunities to connect with your students to re-prepare them for repayment; and to adjust your office strategy for consultation and future goals.

Visit the Return to Repayment Outreach page to gain insights, find a solution and prepare:

• Review articles on the key impacts of CARES Act expiration
• View on-demand webinars on preparing for repayment
• Listen to Q&A sessions with your peers on the CARES Act ramifications

Learn more to get help connecting with your students.

As you've adjusted to the time of student loan suspension, other priorities may have overcome student loan repayment. And, it's likely your students have adjusted their saving and spending habits. New habits and new challenges offer opportunity, if you’re ready. Opportunities to connect with your students and reprepare them for repayment; and to adjust your office strategy for consultation and future goals.

Understanding the ramifications of a mass resume date on student loan repayment can help you understand the impact it may have on your student borrowers and your school. Read more about The Five Key Impacts of CARES Act Expiration.

Register for the Return to Repayment webinar to hear more about the challenges this presents for students and schools along with recommendations on steps to take to ease the strain. We will save time for questions too.

Use these free resources.
Check out the Exit Counseling & Repayment Toolkit to download free resources to understand the impacts of repayment resuming, help promote repayment readiness, and tips for planning.

Get help with student outreach.
We can help with Return to Repayment Outreach. Strategic student outreach to remind borrowers about resuming repayments and determining the best avenue if there are additional challenges that could hinder their progress. It’s one more connection between you and your students that could reduce the number of delinquent and defaulted borrowers, and keep your CDR in check.

Higher education is facing monumental change due to COVID-19. State budgets are being reduced, enrollment is down and schools face the daunting task of layoffs. At many schools, the financial aid office is also being impacted. You’re being challenged to do more with fewer resources and find virtual solutions to service students and your team. Plus, your office also serves as the gateway to enrollment. Being able to award aid in an efficient and timely manner is good for your students and vital to your school.

Verification Gateway can help you process verifications with an intuitive, automated platform to gather information and documentation required to verify students quickly and efficiently. Developed with the student and administrator in mind, Verification Gateway is easy to use, streamlines the entire process, and is available on any device, wherever and whenever it is needed. In fact, current school clients have reported a 20-35% lift in completed verifications and a 23% reduction in verification melt resulting in more students and increased revenue for your institution.

Find out how other schools have improved their results and reduced expenses with Verification Gateway by reading our current case studies or request a customized ROI by contacting your Business Development partner.

The pandemic has affected the finances of many students and their families, making early FAFSA completion more important than ever. Having more time to process professional judgements or verification is a win-win for both students and the financial aid office.

Inceptia has created a free tool to help you promote early FAFSA completion: our FAFSA Toolkit.

Here, you’ll find checklists, letters and emails, posters, videos and more, ready for you to share with students and families. From gathering FAFSA information to completion to understanding verification, we’ve got everything you need to help your students get a jump start on a busy FAFSA season!

New Look
If you have logged into your Administrator Portal lately, you may have noticed a big change! We have redesigned the site with drop-down menus, and a new option that allows you to view all resources available by course. We hope this new design simplifies how you explore and access the many great tools available to you in the Portal.

New Lesson Plan
Our newest lesson plan is ready to use! “The Racial Wealth Divide” explores the systemic policies and practices that have created a long history of wealth inequality for people of color. Use this thought-provoking lesson and the corresponding activities to foster an open dialogue with your students. It is available now in the Educator Toolkit within your Administrator Portal.

What do you think?
Tell us your thoughts so we can continue to provide valuable information and resources for Financial Avenue. Take our quick 5-question survey here.

We know that the pandemic has given students and families much to think about beyond the usual discussions of where to go and how to complete the FAFSA. Through our partnership with NerdWallet, Great Advice for Parents 2020 includes coverage of current COVID-19 considerations.

Send the link directly or use this downloadable flyer to share Great Advice for Parents with the students, families, educators and other organizations with whom you work. We hope this information allows families to keep moving forward in making informed college planning decisions for the 2021-22 school year.

Join us for these upcoming webinars and stay tuned to our resources page for additional sessions that may be added.

We look forward to speaking with you at these virtual conferences. If you are unable to attend, or do not see one in your region, we have a dedicated business development team in your area who will be happy to answer questions.

Proactive outreach to students puts them on the right track for successfully fulfilling goals and obligations, especially if there are any additional challenges. Use these Inceptia Outreach Programs to extend your contact with students at the critical times they need to make decisions and take action. Our highly-trained counselors use a variety of methods to reach your students and provide important reminders, answer questions and provide the information they need to overcome barriers.

Return to Repayment Outreach: Reaching out to your borrowers to offer information and answer critical questions related to the CARES Act and student loan legislation so they can successfully resume repayment.

FAFSA Completion Outreach: Remind students of the importance of completing the FAFSA and provide support for unique financial circumstances through targeted, proactive communication.

Student Outreach Program: Connecting with prospective, current and withdrawn students to address entry concerns, provide support and collect data.

Classes are underway in many forms and the next wave of verifications will be coming in. What if your team could handle it all virtually from one intuitive platform that was also easy for your students to access and understand? So much easier that you could increase your completed verifications by more than 30% or decrease the time it takes from first ISIR to verified by 50% and save over 70% on each verification?

Verification Gateway is available in full-service delivery meaning you can leverage the intuitive features including paperless document handling and e-signing from any device and reap the benefits of progressive smart rules that auto verify and flag verifications that need additional attention. You’ll also experience decreased call volume and faster verification turnaround to package your students' aid sooner.

Contact us for your personalized ROI to see how much you can save!

The Stephens College financial aid team was looking for a solution that could process verifications faster, while maintaining quality of service, providing an online user-friendly experience, and easing the staff workload. When outsourcing became an option, “it became the preferred alternative.”

Read more about their story.

We all know school is different this year for students and the financial aid office alike. While surveys indicate students want to come back to school and are doing their best to cope, many will need a change in their financial aid to do so or have extenuating circumstances that add extra challenges.

PJ Advisor and our SAP Advisor, our virtual platforms handle requests and appeals that can streamline the PJ, emergency aid and SAP process for your students and your school. Developed with the student and administrator in mind, these solutions are easy to use with intuitive questions and step-by-step instructions to capture each specific situation. Both are available on any device, wherever and whenever it is needed for the student and for your team to review and approve. PJ Advisor and SAP Advisor are easy to implement and can be fully operational within two weeks.

Over the past few years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of schools utilizing debt letters to educate and inform students regarding loan management. Keeping the information available and in front of students also keeps it closer to top of mind. Our Loan Summary program has been so well-received by students and highly sought by college administrators for a number of reasons:

• Curated information provided at timely interventions.
• Loan Summary allows schools to customize a communication schedule with the autonomy to gauge when your students may have fewer demands on their time or mental bandwidth, allowing them space to better process and act upon loan information.
• The Loan Summary site contains a broad range of financial education information, calculators, budgets and other tools to supplement our letters, which can be paired with our online financial education program, Financial Avenue, to have even more impact.
• Upload private/institutional loan information means that our Loan Summary letters are truly comprehensive and more accurate than other sites that may only provide federal loan information.

The Loan Summary student emails are kept current to address financial hardships related to COVID-19, conveying support and understanding, while encouraging students to weather uncertain financial times by proactively managing student borrowing and repayment options. We also provide students with information regarding the CARES Act and invite them to speak with one of our Inceptia student loan experts regarding their CARES questions.

Pulling together your feedback and monitoring student behavior, we know that you want new Financial Avenue content and new ways to engage students. With that in mind, we are adding lesson plans to the Financial Avenue administrator portal.

Located within the Educator Toolkit, these lesson plans allow you to conduct your own webinars, workshops, class discussions – however you choose to use them. The plans include an educator guide with resources, as well as a PowerPoint Presentation.

Lesson plans will continue to be added over the coming months, including timely and relevant topics such as the racial wealth divide, women and finance, and how to manage money during a crisis.

Still not sure how to increase Financial Avenue participation at your campus? Just ask us! We’re here to help with tips and best practices from around the country.

Contact your Inceptia Business Development team representative or our Client Support team for more information.

The 2020 edition of Great Advice for Parents is now available! An annual favorite, this free e-guide provides high school students and their families with the critical information they need now to make college admission and financial aid decisions, including special COVID-19 considerations.

Share this invaluable resource with your students, prospective students, campus departments or anyone who needs a little great advice.

The pandemic has caused many students to take stock of their finances, with 60% reporting their financial literacy has increased over the past few months. This is an unexpected but welcome byproduct of these uncertain times, and shows that students are seeking financial empowerment and control over their money.

Let’s help them achieve that with Loan Summary. Modeled after the successful “debt letter” initiatives from across the country, Loan Summary bridges the gap between entrance and exit counseling to help students better understand the connection between current borrowing and future outcomes.

Students want to learn – let’s keep the momentum going! Read more about Loan Summary or contact your Assistant Vice President of Business Development for a demo.

For the last two months we’ve touched on the CARES Act and the borrower challenges your office may face anticipating the initial September 30 end date. With the executive order for extension through December 31, there is even more time for students to get out of the habit of paying attention to their student loans as they add another semester of cost.

Let’s take a look at how students can be helped with reentering repayment for the best possible outcome. And, if you need help in any of these areas, our Return to Repayment Outreach offers resources, multi-touch communication and student loan borrowing counselors to extend the reach of your team in connecting with students.

Offer student borrowers resources. When borrowers do have questions, make resources easy to find. With Return to Repayment Outreach, Inceptia has student advocate counselors ready to answer student borrower questions through Student Knowledge HQ, chat and a simple phone call. Knowing where to find information will help students prepare for the next step, so their student loans are one less concern.

Stay in touch throughout this process. It will be far easier for student borrowers to work through current repayment issues now than when repayment resumes and everyone enters repayment together. If borrowers can make payments now, the zero interest rate can help reduce their principle. If they can’t make payments, this is a great time to renew or enroll for an Income Driven Repayment (IDR) plan. These plans can be changed when income changes significantly.

We are all in this together and patience and empathy will be key. Many times with personal hardship, financial hardship follows so even the simplest of questions might be the first question. An empathetically fresh ear to each borrowers concerns will help get to the root of the information you need to determine the next steps in counseling and recommendations

Many of us will still be working from somewhere other than our offices at least part of the time for the foreseeable future. Verifications will keep coming in. What if your team could handle it all virtually from one intuitive platform that was also easy for your students access and understand? So much easier that you could increase your completed verifications by more than 30% or decrease the time it takes from first ISIR to verified by 50%?

Verification Gateway is available for full service or SaaS delivery meaning you can leverage the intuitive features including paperless document handling and e-signing from any device and reap the benefits of over 500 smart rules to auto verify and flag verifications that need additional attention, decreased call volume and faster verification turnaround to package your students aid sooner.

It's no surprise that returning to school is different this year. While surveys indicate students want to come back to school, many will need a change in their financial aid to do so. Ninety percent of NASFAA contacts surveyed agree that PJs are on the rise and the current process is daunting and could be the difference in a student to deciding if they will enroll or return to school.

PJ Advisor, our virtual professional judgement platform can streamline the PJ process for your students and your school. Developed with the student and administrator in mind, PJ Advisor is easy to use, streamlines the entire process, and is available on any device, wherever and whenever it is needed. It's also easy to implement and can be fully operational and ready for you to use yet this term.

In our July Insight, we talked about the CARES Act and our Return to Repayment Outreach to help your students reenter repayment. This month we look into the potential challenges for students and financial aid offices after the Federal student loan repayment suspension ends. As a reminder, FFEL Loans and private loans held by lenders are not included in these changes.

Inceptia continues to monitor the Federal student loan suspension status with the understanding that the dates in this article are subject to change.

Earlier this year, COVID-19 awakened us to a massive change for students, parents, and schools. Changes that have been different from anything we’ve seen before and frightening because of not only the size but also the pace with which it took place. And then there’s student loan debt.

On March 27 President Trump signed the $2 trillion stimulus CARES Act. The unprecedented change came with unparalleled relief efforts which were in part designed to help students. Payments on Federally held student loans were halted and a zero interest rate placed on these loans from March 13 through September 30, 2020.

We share a responsibility with you to ensure that while our student borrowers are social distancing from friends and others, they stay connected to their student loan responsibility as we ease back into the new normal including repayment.

Inceptia can help with Return to Repayment, proactive outreach to borrowers to remind them of resuming repayments. Determining if there are any additional challenges now will help them make the adjustments necessary to put them on the right track to successfully fulfilling their repayment obligations without falling behind. Learn more.

We are also offering a webinar on July 14, “Return to Repayment: The relief, the precautions, and the preparation.” to talk through the changing landscape of repayment and some recommendations on steps you can take in preparation to ease the strain.