Job ID 2022-12254

 

Category Staff

 

Position Type Regular Full-Time

Posting Title

Director, Financial Aid, Law School

Overview

The Director of Financial Aid provides dynamic and creative leadership, recruitment, and training for a student financial aid office with an emphasis on student service.  Applies sound business practices to efficiently deliver student financial aid funds to students within the parameters of all applicable laws, regulations, and official guidance while furthering the vision and mission of the law school and The Catholic University of America. Works collaboratively with many offices and personnel within the law school and the broader university.

Responsibilities

• Hires, supervises, trains, and evaluates staff – currently the Office Manager.
• Develops and monitors expense budget for the Financial Aid Office.
• Determines student eligibility for various federal, state, and institutional financial aid programs.
• Ensures compliance with all applicable federal and state laws, regulations and guidance for the determination of aid eligibility and the distribution of aid.
• Collaborates with relevant technical staff to create official financial aid packages for all law and JD dual-degree students.
• Manually executes all the steps required to create official financial aid packages on as as-need basis
• Generally delegates, but carefully oversees all relevant activity with respect to processing student loans, including adjustments and return of funds.  Note: it has been long-standing policy that the Financial Aid Office assists students with the return of loan funds through Cardinal Student through the 120-day window following the last date of disbursement or the end of the academic year, including the summer session, whichever is later.
• Works collaboratively with the Law School Registrar and the Executive Director of Student Financial Assistance to identify withdrawals, and to perform Return of Title IV funds calculations and associated actions within Cardinal Student and Department of Education software/systems.
• Communicates effectively and in a timely manner to all law students about financial aid programs and associated application procedures, remaining aware of the differing needs between first-year applicants, returning students, and returning students accessing federal student aid programs for the first time.
• Develops appropriate communications to inform first-year and returning students about the interplay between financial aid and student account activity, including especially medical insurance billing.
• Collaborates with the Assistant Dean for Admissions to develop strategic communications plan for first-year applicants and transfer students, develop effective strategies to award institutional scholarships to first-year students, and support relevant reporting from the Office of
• Institutional Research. Is available for travel as directed by the Assistant Dean for Admissions to support recruiting activity
• Works collaboratively with the Assistant Dean for Admissions and the Director of Marketing and Communications to provide reports and statistical information for Marketing and Communications support.
• Monitors the transfer of enrollment and scholarship information maintained in Admissions software (e.g., Aces2) into Cardinal Student to ensure the both databases reflect identical information.
• Provides accurate, timely and relevant counseling to law school applicants, enrolled students and graduates.
• Collaborates with Enrollment Services to distribute financial aid funds to individual students' accounts, to ensure that scholarship funds do not exceed tuition charges, except as allowed.
• Collaborates with Enrollment Services to communicate to students about financial obligations, payment due dates, payment options, resolve financial issues, and to process VA funds (e.g., Yellow Ribbon program) and inform students of relevant policies (e.g., use of Tuition Waivers instead of scholarship funds).
• Collaborates with Human Resources and affected students to ensure that student recipients understand scholarship policies vis-à-vis Staff Benefits and monitor outcomes and to provide supplemental communications about medical insurance expectations
• Collaborates with the Office of Student Financial Assistance for Graduate and Undergraduate Students to execute financial aid delivery processes, including testing of relevant components such as Budgeting, Packaging, and Aid Processing statuses.
• Collaborates with the Office of Student Financial Assistance for Graduate and Undergraduate Students and the Office of Institutional Research to design and administer surveys to determine appropriate Cost of Attendance Budgets, financial aid budgets, and analyze survey results.
• Determines what expense categories will be represented in the standard Cost of Attendance and which will be included and/or adjusted through Professional Judgment procedures.
• Meets regularly with the Director of the Office of Student Financial Assistance for Graduate and Undergraduate Students to implement relevant surveys and data-collection to ensure financial aid programs are effectively meeting the needs of students.
• Meets, along with law school financial aid staff, with relevant staff of the Office of Student Financial Assistance for Graduate and Undergraduate Students to draft, edit, and maintain consistent Policies and Procedures, including updates on software functionality and capabilities.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree required with two (2) to three (3) years finance-related administrative experience. Two to three years customer-service experience. Established knowledge of, and work with, complex database systems, particularly practical experience with data extraction and problem-solving. Experience in higher education highly desirable. Extensive use of typical computer applications: word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation programs.

 

Extensive experience with Enterprise Resource Platforms (e.g. PeopleSoft) used for the administration of student financial aid highly desirable.

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