Business Office
Our Business Office collects references from the cash paying students as well, just in case they lieave school with a balance
Again, the bottom line is that you can't help those students who you can't find. The more references you can collect, the more success you'll have if a student becomes a "skip."
With the Business office not directly involved with the student, what would be the best approach in obtaining current information from the student?
The effectiveness of the Business Office in collecting information will vary by school. As mentioned in an earlier post, you may interact with cash pay borrowers. Students might come to you regarding funds for bookstore supplies or to pay miscellaneous fees. All of these individuals can be prompted for updated contact information, even if they are not student loan borrowers. This would be especially effective because students consider it a logical part of the transaction and are likely to give a positive response.
You might also have a great opportunity to help the Financial Aid office by obtaining a list of borrowers for whom contact information is needed. If there is an area not visible to students where teachers come regarding payroll issues, you could post this “missing†borrower list for faculty review.
Finally, many schools offer students the convenience of making payments online; schools should be sure to prompt students for contact information on these webpages.
Our business office doesn't do much with our defaulted loans. They do try to get drops with balances covered. We do have a default managment team who does try to contact the students nearing default. Also, our Placement department usually gets updated addresses and pretty good references from our graduating students, which our default management team uses to contact the former students they need. I think the biggest problem with default, is that its the drop students more apt to default than the ones that acutally finish their program.
I believe checking in with the listed references is a GREAT idea. Often times fake references are given & it makes it nearly impossible to locate students if they become a "skip".
That's really important for the business office to do this. Wouldn't you think it would benefit the school if every department were to update references on a quarterly basis?
Having every department involved in collecting references and updated contact information is definately a benefit to the school.
Everyone from Admissions to Financial Aid to the Career Placement Office when the student leaves school needs to realize that working as a team every step of the way is vital to maintaining good contact information for the borrower.
The goal for all involved should be maintaining a positive relationship with the borrower which in the end benefits the school by having low default rates.
Never thought about having the Business Office collecting references. Great idea! At what point would you request the references?
Having the student complete a disbursement acknowledgment before receiveing their funds is a great way to get new information. Provide room for them to leave 1-2 references as well as updated address and phone information along with information them that this is a loan that has to be repaid.
You will obatin new information as well as remind them of their obligation in paying back their student loans.
From time to time a family member will call in a payment for a student, and I will ask them if they would mind if I called them in the future on other payments. Often this results in contact information updated by the student, and payments being made.
