St. Thomas Aquinas College is in the New York City Metropolitan area with a mission of offering a leading-edge, transformative education. The campus is a lively, close-knit community that encourages individual growth and exploration. The faculty are not just educators but also mentors who inspire lifelong learning.

 

The current verification process did not match the student-centered mission of the college, according to the financial office. It was taking too much time and effort from the team. “We were spending a significant amount of time following up with students at different stages in the verification process and that time was affecting our ability to provide other key support and counseling services,” said the Director of Student Financial Services.

 

The Financial Aid team was struggling with paperwork and falling behind connecting with students, causing inefficiency. They knew they needed to avoid further loss of time and resources.

 

“We knew outsourcing was likely our best option to manage our resources and after seeing Verification Gateway (VG) in action, we were excited about the opportunity for change.”

 

Verification Gateway from Inceptia is an automated online platform that streamlines federal verification processing for students and schools. Their services include interview-style questions, secure document collection, complete reporting, and personal interaction when necessary. Speaking with existing VG clients made it clear to the Financial Aid team that VG would be the key to the progress they were looking for.

 

The student and parent-first user-interface design of VG breaks down the process into an easy-to-manage task list. If additional communication is needed, the VG team is there to help. Having a dedicated team focused solely on verification has improved workflow processing and offers greater support to students to ensure verifications are completed in a timely manner. The Inceptia partnership has allowed the Financial Aid team to free up key resources so they can better support their students.

 

To learn more about Verification Gateway, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

 

 

Greensboro College provides a supportive and inclusive environment for its diverse student body and strives to make higher education accessible through its robust financial aid programs, ensuring that students have the resources they need to pursue their educational goals. For Student Financial Services, the school theme, “Graduate ready for anything” means removing barriers to keep students and staff focused on what students really need can be the difference in a positive college experience.

 

“There are so many little things that can be missed in financial aid throughout a student’s journey,” says, Lindsay Latham, Senior Director of Student Financial Services. Greensboro’s Student Financial Services Team was handling verification, but after some audit findings, the changing regulatory landscape added further pressure to the team. “With a small team, even with a small student body, it could completely tie up at least one full-time person just sorting out the details.”

 

Greensboro implemented Verification Gateway, a full-service solution that streamlines the verification process, to relieve the stress of verification on the team. “Outsourcing isn’t replacing anyone on our team, it’s adding to our team. When a student is completing verification they often need assistance multiple times. Inceptia is handling all of the verification questions and streamlining the dreaded verification process. This allows our team to focus on the students themselves and their actual financial needs. Now, more than ever our students need us to have time to sit down with them and hold financial conversations. Inceptia allows us to have that available time.”

 

Being able to really focus on students themselves led Greensboro to also implement Repayment Counseling Outreach, an Inceptia solution to connect and counsel delinquent borrowers. “We haven’t been doing repayment for a while. Inceptia’s team keeps up with all of the information our borrowers need to know to knowledgeably make decisions on their repayment route, so we can keep our general knowledge, but rely on Inceptia to connect with borrowers and answer questions. It’s well worth the investment to save the time and stress on our team.”

 

To learn more about Verification Gateway, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

 

 

Alvernia University has a longstanding commitment to helping students develop their innate talents, discover their passions and lead successful lives with deep meaning and purpose. By offering experiential learning and superior support throughout the student, Alvernia graduates are well-prepared to thrive in the workplace. The Student Financial Services team extends that same commitment to students when it comes to their financial future and student loan repayment by ensuring all students have access to resources to help with successful repayment.

 

Even though the team had a process for working with students and guiding them to successful loan repayment, Alvernia’s student loan defaults were rising and with a small student population, just a few can have a big impact. “When I started seeing a consistent rise in number of students defaulting, I knew we needed to make a change to our approach of loan repayment counseling,” said Christine Saadi, Sr. Director of Student Financial Services. Ms. Saadi met with the Inceptia team to evaluate the situation. “We needed to figure out if we could evaluate which students may run into repayment trouble in the future, but that takes a lot of time and our team was spread thin already,” comments Ms. Saadi.

 

Realizing those borrowers that may have trouble is just part of the challenge. Once they could predict potential defaulters, Ms. Saadi and team knew that even if they added another person it would take more counseling time than available to offer the support the Alvernia students are accustomed to.

 

It’s also a challenge to find someone that has the depth of repayment knowledge, or wants to, to keep up with the regulations and guidelines associated with the changing repayment landscape.

 

“Once we determined the issues and talked through our goals with Inceptia, we all saw how the Inceptia Repayment Counseling Outreach team could help us by doing the pro-active outreach and counseling needed to help our at-risk borrowers.”

 

Inceptia’s highly-trained counselors have a deep concentration of loan repayment and soft skills training to help student borrowers understand their repayment requirements and determine next best steps for their financial situation and changes that have occurred. The Repayment Counseling Outreach program includes multiple contact methods to nudge borrowers into taking actions that will put them on the right track for repayment, including live support to answer questions.

 

Alvernia’s students that are slipping into delinquency are being proactively contacted and have a dedicated resource to help them successfully recover, allowing the Student Financial Services team to focus on other student counseling concerns and continue the student support the school strives to provide. “The value in knowing Inceptia cares for our students like we do allows us to concentrate on our strengths and purpose to give the best to our students. The return on our investment in Repayment Counseling Outreach is positive for our students, staff and institution overall,” concludes Ms. Saadi.

 

Find out how Repayment Counseling Outreach can benefit your school. Contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

 

 

West Georgia Technical College (WGTC) is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia serving its surrounding communities through relevant training that leads to associate degrees, diplomas, technical certifications as well as continuing education. One of the ways WGTC supports student success is through a variety of class sessions including the “mini-mester.” Looking to increase enrollment for this beneficial session, they needed to find a way to reach students in time.

 

With the mini-mester fast approaching, WGTC faced additional challenges in the form of technology updates and staffing changes – common disruptions to which many campuses can relate. This resulted in increased time spent on training, while still tasked with assisting students through the enrollment funnel and maintaining diligent student contact.

 

Lori Basham, Director of Admissions, knew they needed to find another way to boost their enrollment. “Mini-mesters are always an enrollment challenge because there aren’t as many classes and students may not be ready, but the benefit to meeting a deadline and earning credit in half the time is well worth it. Having had various roles in the department, I knew we didn’t have the time as a team to provide the level of personal touch that is necessary for students to realize these benefits in time.”, said Basham.

 

WGTC’s mission is to be a model of innovation and excellence in technical education, recognized as an outstanding economic and community partner, and a nimble provider of pathways to rewarding careers. Basham explains, “Three of our core values are integrity, professionalism, and student success. We knew Inceptia would be able to relay our values through the training that is provided to their student advocates and that our students would be taken care of just as if we were communicating with them.”

 

Each member of the Inceptia student advocate counseling team goes through extensive initial training, including assessments and quality assurance checks. In addition, the team participates in monthly internal and external training to keep their skills current along with soft skills practices to thoughtfully manage their student conversations for a successful outcome.

 

WGTC provided a targeted list of students to be contacted through Inceptia’s strategic Student Outreach Program. With a 30% phone contact rate and nearly 64% email open rate, 35% of the students registered, and 36% enrolled by the deadline. “We provided a small list and still had success with the program. The return on our investment in the Outreach Program drastically outweighed the cost. We gained insight into what was holding our students back from mini-mester enrollment and we know our students were contacted with care,” says Basham. We’re already planning on our next campaign with Inceptia.”

  To learn more about Student Outreach Programs, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.  

 

Gwinnett Tech’s motto is, “Teach every individual; serve every business.” As part of the Technical College System of Georgia, Gwinnett Technical College is a public two-year institution that serves the communities of Gwinnett and North Fulton by offering campus and distance learning for associate degrees, diplomas and certificates in credit programs as well as for adult and continuing education training.

 

An enrollment manager at Gwinnett Technical College (GTC) had a great idea: follow up the admitted student email with a personal phone call. There were prospective students that weren’t responding to emails and only acknowledging texts, with no follow through, but they were answering their phones. “There was something so interesting about it, just good old-fashioned phone calls, and talking with somebody to direct those students to the appropriate resources,” said Dr. Kohle Paul, Vice President, Student Affairs.

 

All of the information was in the emails and texts, but the team found it really resonated with students when they were called. What the GTC team didn’t realize was that the impact and response rate would be so high from those contacts.

 

“The weeks the team facilitated the welcome to GTC calls were great, but with summer volume picking up, the team was unable to continue,” said Paul.

 

“So, we started searching for other ways to continue the campaigns as we felt it added a personal touch to new students, welcoming them to the college and next steps, as well as returning students and welcoming them back.”

 

The timing was right when Paul was attending a monthly meeting for the System and Inceptia was speaking. “I knew some of my system cohorts had been working with Inceptia and the experience of their contact team with managing student concerns and processing made me think this would be a great opportunity to extend our team’s reach with Inceptia’s expertise to deliver the same level of student understanding we would with more time.”

 

Inceptia got to work on connecting with the students on the list GTC provided – a little over 800 admitted students. Each member of the Inceptia student advocate counseling team goes through extensive initial training, including assessments and quality assurance checks. In addition, the team participates in monthly internal and external training to keep their skills current along with soft skills practices to thoughtfully manage their student conversations for a successful outcome.

 

Through a strategically planned contact campaign, 181 students actually enrolled and, even better, some have signed up for the next term – early. Paul said, “This outreach campaign was extremely helpful to promote our fall enrollment and actually allowed us to reach our first time freshmen goal. So we were excited about the work!”

 

Paul added, “It’s a valuable return on our partnership investment. That’s 181 more people that are enriching their lives through education and that’s really our goal.” All students that Inceptia interacted with also got a follow-up email, so even if they haven’t enrolled yet, the door is open and they have the information they need to move forward when they are ready.

 

To learn more about Student Outreach Programs, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

 

 

Delgado Community College is a public community college with campuses throughout the New Orleans, Louisiana metropolitan area. Delgado serves more than 15,000 students with degrees and training focused on today’s in-demand jobs to drive the local and regional economy.

 

One of Delgado’s mottos is “Be in that number!” meaning be one of us, be successful, and be well-employed. A motto that more fully speaks to the benefits of enrollment – breaking the barriers of education to challenged populations, increasing the number of graduates, and getting graduates into better-paying jobs. With those ideas in mind Michelle Greco, Director of Enrollment Management, was looking at their potential to enrollment numbers and needed to find a way to decrease the gap. “With seven campuses serving the New Orleans area, we can extend workforce development and continuing education even further, but only if we can get those potential students from applied to enrolled.” says Greco.

 

Greco had two subsets in mind – students that were new to Delgado and some that had withdrawn in Spring 2022, but her team didn’t have time to do the kind of outreach needed. “We wanted to find out why these individuals were not moving forward to actually register for classes. They took the first step to apply, so what’s holding them back?”

 

Having past experience with the Inceptia team using Verification Gateway, Greco knew they would extend the care with the students that her office would, so she talked with her team about using Inceptia’s Student Outreach Programs targeted towards new and returning students. Within these programs, the Inceptia team engages with students to address barriers, reduce melt and student anxiety while promoting school connections and enrollment.

 

“A lot of things sort of happen at the spur of the moment, and in everybody’s world, especially right now. Inceptia was able to accommodate a quick-turn request to best meet the timing with these potential students,” says Greco. “I was able to upload my list and within a day, an Inceptia support representative called me a few times to make sure that I was successful with the uploads, that they could see the data, and I uploaded the right number of participants. I really appreciated that extra attention during that time period when there wasn’t time available for me to do this special project.”

 

The outreach audience consisted of 2,031 students – 219 that had withdrawn from Spring 2022 and 1,812 that were new to Delgado. “With help from Inceptia, I was able to provide the students I wanted to reach out to, so they could encourage them to enroll and address whatever was holding them back. I didn’t give them an “easy” list as these prospects hadn’t demonstrated much interest in the past.”

 

Inceptia worked through the outreach candidates using a multifaceted time and delivery connection strategy. These connections resulted in 582 total enrollments for the regular term and term B combined. Of these enrollments, 524 were new students and 58 returned after having withdrawn.

 

To learn more about Student Outreach Programs, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

 

 

There’s a good reason 85,000 students call Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) their home. Students can choose from CSCU’s 12 community colleges, four universities, or its online college to earn an academic credential. Plus, CSCU has the lowest tuition cost in the state, making it an affordable option for students and families. More than 300,000 degrees and certificates have been awarded since CSCU’s inception in 1983 from all discipline studies, ranging from liberal arts, manufacturing, and nursing degrees.

 

Higher education continues to face enrollment obstacles. To further the issue, COVID-19 has created an increase in financial burdens resulting in a downward spiral in student enrollment, especially among incoming freshmen who are uncertain on how to adjust their plans or unwilling to pay a higher tuition for online classes.

 

Despite the challenges, CSCU’s 12 community colleges remain diligent in keeping enrollment steady. Using Verification Gateway (VG) to complete verifications sooner so students can plan accordingly plays a role in their success. With a 29% average decrease in verifications completed 14 days prior to semester and a 38% average decrease in verifications completed 7 days prior to semester. This earlier completion of verifications resulted in a 15% average increase in packaging rate by the first day of classes. More students receiving their aid sooner equals a higher potential for enrollment.

 

“One of the biggest challenges CSCU students faced during COVID-19 was the transition to remote learning and the technological requirements that went with it,” said Steve McDowell, Associate Vice President for Financial Aid Services and Title IV Compliance. “With this challenge, we were fortunate to have VG already in place because students could safely complete verifications from home. It was one less thing they had to worry about.”

 

CSCU’s large student population equals a large number of selected verifications burdening the financial aid office with manual verification checks that often resulted in less time being available to work directly with students. Between all 17 institutions, about 40,000 students were being selected for verification annually, including more than 28,000 from the community colleges alone. McDowell and his team knew they needed to find a solution to alleviate the pressure on the team with verification so they could turn their focus to needed student counseling throughout the system. They also knew more verifications completed sooner offered the potential to increase enrollment.

 

When the financial aid team implemented VG for the 2018-19 aid year, they quickly experienced some relief for the team. Verification Gateway from Inceptia is an automated online platform that streamlines federal verification processing for students and schools by offering interview-style questions, simple and secure document collection, complete reporting and personal interaction when needed.

 

The most immediate result was the significant decrease in student foot traffic and call volume. Inceptia’s team handled all verification matters, opening up the time for the financial aid staff to engage with students in different capacities.

 

“The administrative demand within higher education financial aid is complex and overwhelming at times,” McDowell said. “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.”

 

Processing time was no longer consumed by cumbersome back-and-forth questions, paper overload, or delayed responses. Since VG’s inception, CSCU has seen significant results: a two-day turnaround time; 28% average increase in completed verifications; and 50% average decrease in the time it had been taking from first ISIR received to verified.

 

To learn more about Verification Gateway, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.