Financial Aid Processing Support

• Award Federal, State and University funds to qualifying students under the guidelines set by the Department of Education, the Commission for Higher Education and Indiana University
• Certify and audit eligibility for federal and private loans
• Audit eligibility for aid when student status changes, including receipt of additional assistance, change in enrollment status or academic program, class level, or other factors impacting eligibility
• Assess students’ academic eligibility for federal and state aid (measuring Satisfactory Academic Progress -SAP) and coding student records with assessment results
• Calculate the amount of federal aid earned for students who withdraw or stop attending all classes or who fail to begin attendance after receiving a refund, and return unearned funds to the federal aid programs

Student Information System (SIS) set up and support

• Annually establish student Cost of Attendance (COA) figures using an agreed upon methodology for estimating direct and indirect education expenses, including tuition and fees, books, room and board, transportation and personal expenses
• Configure the SIS to assign estimated costs to students based on their attributes including resident/non-resident, undergraduate/graduate, academic program, enrollment status and monitor for changes in status
• Establish and code rules for awarding and disbursing financial assistance via batch processes in accordance with applicable regulations and policies
• Create, monitor and maintain batch programs for loading and sending/receiving files from external agencies, including state aid data, federal application records, federal loan and grant origination and disbursement records, student loan entrance and exit counseling confirmations
• Design, test, implement and maintain SIS modifications to improve processing accuracy and ensure regulatory compliance

Enterprise Scholarship System – Blackbaud Award Management

USSS provides:

• Central administration of a shared, online vended system for awarding institutional scholarships
• Onboarding for new users with fit-gap analysis and configuration recommendations
• Configuration option testing to achieve desired results, and testing for new features and enhancements as they are rolled out by the vendor
• Leadership for a system-wide user group for training, coordination and sharing best practices
• Security administration and user role assignments
• Aggregation and prioritization of IU requests to the vendor for desired enhancements

IU System External Reporting and Compliance

• Oversight for campus compliance with federal requirements for making certain student consumer information available, sending required notifications and monitoring related notifications to students and staff as dictated by the Higher Education Act as amended, FERPA, the Clery Act, the Violence Against Women Act, etc.
• Maintain student cost of attendance, academic and financial aid statistical data in the Indiana College Cost Estimator to meet requirements for each campus to Net Price Calculator available to current and prospective students
• Creation and maintenance of student disclosures (consumer information) and federal enrollment reporting for students enrolled in aid-eligible certificate programs (referred to as Gainful Employment programs)
• Annual preparation and submission of the Federal Fiscal Operations Report and Application to Participate (FISAP) for all campuses
• Fiscal oversight of budgets and expenditures for the federal Campus-Based Aid Programs
• Drawdown and reconciliation of all state and federal aid funds
• Coordination with the State Board of Accounts and IU Internal Audit for annual Single Audit of financial aid and any ad hoc audits that may be conducted