Research Briefs Stay aware of the latest trends regarding students, financial education, default prevention, and other higher education subjects. Latest Topics What Pre-Collections Makes Possible Read research brief Show Description An unpaid balance doesn’t have to end a student’s progress. Explore how proactive pre-collections outreach can help resolve balances, preserve relationships and support continued enrollment. Six Institutional Challenges Human Outreach Can Help Solve Read research brief Show Description What could meaningful human connection make possible for your students? Explore six institutional challenges proactive outreach can help solve with real examples and results from colleges. From Receivables to Retention: How Institutions Can Address Unpaid Student Balances Before They Become Barriers to Student Success Read research brief Show Description Unpaid institutional balances are more than a financial challenge—they can create barriers that impact student persistence, retention, and completion. As institutions look for ways to support students while improving financial sustainability, a student-centered approach to balance resolution can help remove obstacles and strengthen outcomes. Read the full brief to explore strategies for addressing unpaid balances and supporting student success. From Admission to Enrollment: Closing the Final Mile Read research brief Show Description For many students, college acceptance feels like the hard part is over — yet for thousands, excitement fades before they ever arrive. Somewhere between acceptance and enrollment, momentum slips. Institutions feel it too. Even with strong marketing and onboarding, competing demands, financial barriers, and incomplete paperwork weaken intent until students simply don’t show up. This brief explores how these “micro-gaps” affect students and campuses — and how proactive, personalized outreach can turn hesitation into progress. Why Verification Efficiency Matters More Than Ever: Policy Shifts + Operational Strategy Read research brief Show Description Verification is changing. While fewer students may be selected, evolving FAFSA requirements and identity verification processes are creating new challenges for financial aid teams. Read the full brief to understand what’s changing and how institutions can adapt. The Hidden Cost of Unpaid Balances: How Compassionate, Proactive Outreach Protects Futures & Institutional Revenue Read research brief Show Description Across the country, colleges and universities face a growing, but often unseen, financial crisis: unpaid student balances that quietly erode retention, revenue, and trust. What begins as a missed payment can quickly become a registration hold, a withdrawn student, or a lost future. For students, these balances often reflect confusion and stress rather than unwillingness to pay. For institutions, they signal inefficiency and risk hidden behind spreadsheets and manual processes. Yet the solution isn’t more pressure – it’s more connection. The Hidden Cost of Unpaid Student Balances explores how proactive, compassionate outreach transforms balance recovery from a collections issue into a student success strategy that protects both futures and institutional stability. Navigating the Evolving Landscape: Strategies for Overcoming Challenges in Higher Education Support Read research brief Show Description The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still playing out in society at large and on college campuses. Some impacts are immediately apparent; others take time to fully manifest themselves. This research brief addresses four areas of concern — four challenges — that are faced by higher education institutions today and may have been aggravated by the events of the last several years. They range from costs, to enrollment, to the long-term viability of the institutions themselves, to how well financial aid departments are managing to address changing circumstances with constrained resources. These challenges will not be news to higher education administrators. But a view of recent research and current statistics may help provide additional perspective on fashioning approaches for the future. In the area of financial aid administration, enrollment management and admissions, that future may very well include a reliance on third-party partnerships to effect better educational and financial outcomes for students. Managing Your CDR: A guide to the CDR timeline, key impacts of repayment, and tips for preparedness. Read research briefShow Description All borrowers were brought current effective March 2020, resulting in all borrowers reentering repayment in October 2023. This also makes it likely that a larger number of borrowers will become delinquent at the same time whether it’s because they can’t afford it, don’t know how to start repayment or don’t realize they have loans at all. Also, with the economic changes and using natural disaster trending data, there is typically a higher than normal delinquency rate following a disaster. It’s vital for schools to prepare now for the influx of student repayment in order to curb default rates, improve student success and enhance the school’s reputation. This guide works through the importance of the CDR, how it is calculated, what happens if your CDR is too high for too long, the key impacts to repayment from the CARES Act, and actions you can take now to prepare. Let us know how we can helpTalk to us Find my representative