Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes MASFAA 2005 Sondra Fonville, University of Michigan & Ellen Barbour, Purdue University

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Scholarships were being awarded all through the academic year, even into April. Improvement: Developed a scholarship policy signed by the president that requires scholarships be awarded by March 1st for freshman and April 1st for returning students.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Various issues associated with Academic Departments and their scholarship awarding processes Improvement A Merit Aid group was formed and it meets regularly to discuss issues that relate to the awarding of scholarships on campus. The group is led by financial aid.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: If a scholarship required need, schools and departments would determine student had need simply due to the fact that student owed a bill. It was inconsistent and inequitable. Improvement: As part of scholarship policy indorsed by the president, the Division of Financial Aid is only entity on campus that can determine financial need.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Awarding scholarships in a manner that is in line with the Michigan Supreme Court case decision Improvement: Creation of a holistic awarding process that ensures exclusive funds are awarded in a narrowly tailored fashion.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: The need to handle documents for donor related scholarships in a more efficient manner. Improvement: We have determined a way to image individual scholarship files for easy access to the information.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Schools and departments were making payments to students directly without notifying our office. Improvement: The scholarship policy signed by the president requires any scholarship payment be processed through out office. Manual check payments to a student will no longer be allowed unless our office signs off on it first.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Managing all the paper our office receives requesting us to set- up scholarship payments. Improvement: Suggestions?

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Michigan Club scholarships required heavy time commitment and non- standard selection processes Improvement: Created a work-group to identify issues and develop guidelines for all clubs to use

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Scholarships established by various Purdue Clubs were not over seen by a designated administrator. This made getting them in line with the university policies difficult. Improvements: The coordination of awarding and raising funds was designated to our Alumni Association. They have one representative that works with all the clubs on policies and best practices when it comes to scholarship creation and spending.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Difficulty managing information received for private scholarships. A need to get information to students in a timely and effective way. Improvement: Developed a piece on our website dedicated to private scholarships, including ability to download applications and a link to organizations offering scholarship.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: School level freshman merit scholarships were being awarded after admissions notified students of possible need-based and university wide merit-based funds. Improvement: We created a system that allows school level merit scholarships to be awarded at time of admissions. This gives student a complete listing of financial support they can expect from the University in one letter sent early, so as to influence the decision to attend.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Having to manually enter all scholarship payments into our system Improvement: Suggestions

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Interest earned on endowments not being spent as they accumulate in the support account. Improvement: A process was developed to monitor funds that are being under utilized.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Issue: Need-based scholarships awarded by financial aid office were not being stewarded Improvement: Work-group was created to look at this issue. Award messages were developed to encourage students to write thank you letters and examples of thank you letters on our website.

Managing Institutional Scholarship Awarding Processes Thank You