Dallas College has a strong internal admissions and enrollment team; one capable of managing high-volume processes and supporting thousands of students each term. But like many institutions, once a student stalled outside the main workflow, the challenge became clear: who follows up, who helps them finish, and who has the bandwidth to do it consistently?

This gap between initial intent and completed enrollment wasn’t about lack of interest or student concern. More often, students need clarity, reassurance, or a reminder that someone was there to help them move forward – and staff availability.

More than 9,200 students had already taken meaningful steps toward enrolling for the summer term. Many were one simple action away, like submitting a document, confirming a step, or reconnecting with support. Without intervention, thousands risked stopping out.

Enrollment Ready Outreach provided Dallas College with the bandwidth and intentional persistence required to reconnect with these students. Through repeated outreach attempts, including live phone calls, voice mails, and personalized messaging, students received clear guidance tailored to where they were in the process. Instead of automated notices, students experienced real conversations with someone who could guide them in the right direction to remove barriers standing in their way.

This approach didn’t just encourage progress, it removed uncertainty. Each interaction provided a next step, captured the student’s response (yes, no, not now and why), and helped Dallas College understand patterns behind disengagement so future outreach could be even more targeted.

The impact was immediate and measurable. Of the 9,207 students contacted, 5,011 completed enrollment for a 54.4% return driven by consistent touchpoints, human understanding, and a process built around the student experience.

Our students weren’t lacking interest—they were lacking support at the right moments. Enrollment Ready Outreach not only helped them move forward, it helped us understand their barriers and refine our approach for the future.

– Chad Decker, Dean of Student Outreach and Enrollment, Dallas College

With Enrollment Ready Outreach, you don’t have to choose between high volume and high-touch support. We’ll supplement your team, provide consistent follow-up, and help more students complete the process. Connect with your Inceptia representative or visit enrollmentready.org to explore what the right outreach strategy could look like for your campus.

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

Outstanding institutional balances can quickly become a barrier to student persistence. For institutions, managing these balances often requires significant staff time and resources, while unresolved balances can prevent students from continuing their education.

At Wichita State University Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology (WSU Tech), leadership recognized that many students with outstanding balances still intended to continue their education but needed support navigating repayment options. To address this challenge, WSU Tech partnered with Inceptia to provide proactive, student-centered outreach designed to resolve balances and remove barriers to enrollment.

Institutional balances create challenges for both students and institutions. Students with unpaid balances may be unable to register for future terms, access transcripts, or continue progressing toward completion. At the same time, campus staff often face the difficult task of reaching hundreds or even thousands of students to discuss repayment options and resolution pathways.

WSU Tech identified an opportunity to provide additional support to students while also reducing the administrative burden on internal teams. By implementing Institutional Balance Outreach (IBO), the institution aimed to:

• Connect directly with students who had outstanding balances
• Provide clear guidance on resolution options
• Reduce institutional receivables
• Support students in continuing their education

WSU Tech loaded approximately 1,800 student accounts into the IBO program. Through proactive outreach, Inceptia counselors worked directly with students to explain their balances, discuss resolution options, and help them take steps toward clearing their accounts. This knowledgeable and compassionate engagement helped students better understand their financial obligations while giving them a clear path forward.

“ Every student we help stay enrolled is one more individual moving toward a career, contributing to our workforce and making a better life for their families. This work is about meeting students where they are, helping them understand their options, and removing barriers so they can stay on track, complete their education, and keep moving forward.”

– Lacey Ledwich, FAAC, Executive Director
Student Financial Services, WSU Tech

The program also provided significant operational support for WSU Tech staff by managing large volumes of student communication and balance discussions.

Within 12 weeks, the program produced measurable results:

• Balances decreased by more than 55%
• 1,179 student accounts resolved with an averageresolved balance of $652

In addition to financial outcomes, the program significantly reduced the workload for WSU Tech’s internal teams.

Without the program, staff would have needed to personally contact hundreds of students to discuss their balances and resolution options. Instead, Inceptia’s outreach team handled these conversations, allowing WSU Tech staff to focus on other institutional priorities.

According to WSU Tech staff, the program also delivered strong customer service support, with quick response times and effective student communication.

Inceptia, a nonprofit organization, provides innovation and leadership in higher education access and success through engaging and empowering students and streamlining processes.

University of Connecticut (UConn) Health has long been committed to providing comprehensive financial support to its medical and dental students, ensuring every future healthcare professional has the resources needed to succeed. When FAFSA changes excluded parent contribution details for independent students, the financial aid office faced a serious challenge: a critical piece of data was suddenly missing from institutional aid calculations.

For medical and dental schools, where accurate financial aid eligibility is essential to support longer and costlier educational pathways, the omission of parent contribution data created a significant barrier. Without reliable information, aid packages risked being delayed or incomplete.

“The last thing a student needs on top of the stress of professional school is another document to track down. We wanted to make the process as easy for them – and as efficient for us – as possible,” said Katie Credle, Assistant Director of Financial Aid.

Already confident in the integrity and flexibility of Inceptia’s Verification Gateway, Credle turned to the Inceptia team for a solution. Together, they implemented Student Engagement Gateway, a new application with integrated verification services. SEG not only addressed the immediate need for collecting parent contribution data, but also leveraged the Inceptia review team to verify submissions while providing built-in reporting to the financial aid office, ensuring accurate, timely support for every eligible student.

With SEG, UConn replaced manual documentation with streamlined, actionable data. The results were immediate:

• 2 business days – average turnaround for Inceptia’s review team
• 12 days – average time from submission to approval
• 90 incoming students – packaged in one day, a new UConn record
• 390 applications reviewed
• 3 months early – packaging complete, much earlier than expected

"We were able to package 90 incoming students in one day, all because of the work of the Inceptia team. When we had to do all the file reviews ourselves, we would never have even hoped to package so early. In fact, we are done three months earlier than expected."

– Katie Credle
Assistant Director of Financial Aid
University of Connecticut Health

SEG not only accelerated UConn’s financial aid process, but also gave staff more time to focus on other student needs. “Student Engagement Gateway provides the flexibility we need to adjust to FAFSA changes, and with the Inceptia team verifying information and providing reporting, it saves time so we can concentrate on serving students,” Credle added.

At UConn Health, the commitment to student success remains stronger than ever, now fortified by the innovative solutions provided by Inceptia. As the FAFSA process continues to evolve, UConn is well-equipped to adapt, ensuring their students have access to the financial resources they need to focus on their education and future careers.

Contact Inceptia to learn how our solutions can transform your institution’s approach to financial aid and ensure your students receive the support they deserve.

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) is committed to empowering students at every stage of their academic journey through access and support. With a focus on student-centered solutions, UNL prioritizes financial aid access as a cornerstone of enrollment management. Central to this mission is ensuring students complete the FAFSA, a critical step in securing financial support and advancing their educational opportunities.

Despite a solid outreach process, UNL faced significant challenges. Husker Hub, the university’s one-stop financial and enrollment services center, was handling a high volume of in-person and virtual traffic. With the team short by four full-time staff members and a rise in minimum wage for student workers, creating budget constraints, the university struggled to maintain consistent, impactful outreach.

“We’re always committed to doing what’s best for our students,” shared Justin Chase Brown, Director of Scholarships & Financial Aid. “But with staff shortages and the increasing demands on our Husker Hub, we simply didn’t have the capacity to reach every student.”

UNL needed an efficient and effective, goal-driven solution to address these limitations without overburdening its resources.

To meet these challenges, UNL partnered with Inceptia to implement the FAFSA Completion Outreach Program. This partnership allowed UNL to focus its efforts on specific groups of students while alleviating the workload on internal staff.

Using a multi-touchpoint approach, Inceptia engaged students through personalized communication, answered their questions, and encouraged FAFSA completion within a concentrated time frame.

“We started small with a pilot group of returning Pell-eligible students who hadn’t filed their FAFSA nor enrolled,” explained Justin. “The team at Inceptia helped us stay focused and ensured we reached students who needed it the most.” For the FAFSA Completion Outreach Program, UNL prioritized all new incoming students who had not yet filed a FAFSA and all enrolled returning students who were Pell-eligible the previous year who had not yet filed a FAFSA. This campaign was timed to begin shortly after the last day to add/drop courses (UNL census date) to boost FAFSA completion for enrolled students.

This structured, data-driven approach provided UNL the capacity to connect with students who might have otherwise been overlooked, delivering measurable results to demonstrate the program’s impact.

In just two weeks, the program began to demonstrate its value. Inceptia successfully contacted 683 students by phone, achieving an impressive 51% contact rate and a remarkable 75% email open rate. Upon completion of the outreach for the campaign, 10% of the prioritized students had already filed their FAFSA within the campaign period, with additional submissions anticipated.

The smaller pilot group of 116 returning Pell-eligible students yielded even stronger outcomes, which was 46 enrollments, highlighting the power of personalized outreach in driving student action.

“This program gave us the capacity and focus we needed,” Justin said. “It’s not just about numbers–it’s about ensuring every student gets the opportunity to succeed.”

UNL’s successful partnership with Inceptia underscores the value of collaboration and outsourcing in higher education. By leveraging a service partnership with external expertise, UNL achieved measurable results without overburdening its budget or internal resources.

Brown encourages other institutions to explore similar strategies: “Don’t hesitate to use every tool at your disposal. Grants, partnerships, and outsourcing can make a world of difference in ensuring students get the support they need without overloading your team.”

Looking ahead, UNL plans to expand these efforts, demonstrating that targeted outreach programs not only support individual students but also drive institutional success.

To learn more about how Enrollment REady Outreach can engage your students and boost enrollment, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.

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.