Lacey Vallery, an admissions counselor at Robert Morris University, has been in the field for just 10 months. So there’s a lot for her to learn about the intricacies of paying for college. But she knows more — a lot more, she says — than she would have if not for the university’s College Affordability Academy.
This year Ms. Vallery and her colleagues completed a home-grown course designed to help them better understand the forces shaping families’ financial decisions. Held every other week, each of eight 90-minute sessions had a theme, like “Trends in Student Aid,” “Loan Entrance Counseling,” and “Majors and Income.”
Previously Ms. Vallery had a more general awareness of those issues. “This made me more comfortable talking to families, just being able to speak confidently,” she says. Instead of shying away from detailed conversations about, say, PLUS Loans, 401(k) plans, and credit scores, she now embraces them. “I can field a lot more in-depth questions,” she says. “Before, I was just kind of skimming the surface.”
The Affordability Academy is a formal response to a simple fact: More prospective students and parents are asking tough questions about the value of the colleges they visit, the return they can expect from their educational investment. In recent years, some institutions have sought to “cross train” their admissions and financial-aid staffs, so that each learns more about the other’s domain. If admissions counselors can’t help families see a financial path that makes sense, even the niftiest recruitment strategies may be for naught.
Although Robert Morris’s admissions staff had a good handle on the financial-aid process, the private university in suburban Pittsburgh stood to do more to strengthen people’s grasp of the challenges many of today’s families face. That’s what Wendy Beckemeyer concluded last year while working on the university’s strategic plan, which emphasizes value.
“College affordability’s become an everyday issue,” she says. “The stakes are getting higher and higher, and that encouraged me to think of doing something new.”
Ms. Beckemeyer, vice president for enrollment management, hears a lot of useful information at national conferences, which junior staff members — less-experienced, and on the front lines of recruitment — typically don’t attend. So she decided to bring together as much as she could into eight presentations: “I was thinking, ‘OK, I know this, but the people who interact with families on a daily basis, how likely are they to find it?”
Net Price and Default Rate
Essentially Ms. Beckemeyer asked her colleagues to go back to school. She gave each person a binder full of assigned readings. Each week she presented data and led discussions. The group learned about loan-repayment options, 529 savings plans, and the earning potential of graduates with STEM degrees. They also got takeaways, like how the university’s net price ($22,476) and three-year default rate on federal loans (4.6 percent) compared with those of its main competitors.
During the session on debt management and counseling, participants took a survey designed to measure their own tolerance for financial risk. They then discussed how their experiences with debt might affect their advice to families.
Admissions and financial-aid counselors weren’t the only ones in the class of nearly 50. Staff members in the offices of career development, multicultural affairs, and student success also participated. As Ms. Beckemeyer says, plenty of people on college campuses help shape enrollment outcomes.
Besides buying snacks, the university spent little on the program. And Robert Morris got some ideas in return. All participants, working in groups, submitted a capstone project: a “deliverable” designed for prospective students and parents.
One group produced a short video about two hypothetical students with identical financial-aid packages; it showed how the decisions each student made (such as working during the summer or not) left them in different financial circumstances after graduation. Another group proposed a “Now What?” tool, an online plug-in that would allow families to compare various payment options after receiving award letters.
Although the program explored the nitty-gritty of paying for college, it was meant to complement, not replace, the work of the financial-aid office. “We’re not financial planners,” says Kellie L. Laurenzi, dean of admissions. “But we want counselors to understand what a family’s bringing up in conversations without having to jump out and go ask someone in financial aid.”
It’s important for those who’ve established relationships with families to have as many seamless conversations as possible, says Ms. Vallery, the new counselor. Parents, she has found, tend to notice when a question stumps a counselor, just as they notice when one speaks authoritatively. “They can see that,” she says, “on your face.”
Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.
