Insight Newsletter
August 1, 2020
Manage Your In-House Verification From Your "Wherever" Office

Many of us will still be working from somewhere other than our offices at least part of the time for the foreseeable future. Verifications will keep coming in. What if your team could handle it all virtually from one intuitive platform that was also easy for your students access and understand? So much easier that you could increase your completed verifications by more than 30% or decrease the time it takes from first ISIR to verified by 50%?

Verification Gateway is available for full service or SaaS delivery meaning you can leverage the intuitive features including paperless document handling and e-signing from any device and reap the benefits of over 500 smart rules to auto verify and flag verifications that need additional attention, decreased call volume and faster verification turnaround to package your students aid sooner.

Professional Judgement Doesn’t Have to be Complicated

It's no surprise that returning to school is different this year. While surveys indicate students want to come back to school, many will need a change in their financial aid to do so. Ninety percent of NASFAA contacts surveyed agree that PJs are on the rise and the current process is daunting and could be the difference in a student to deciding if they will enroll or return to school.

PJ Advisor, our virtual professional judgement platform can streamline the PJ process for your students and your school. Developed with the student and administrator in mind, PJ Advisor is easy to use, streamlines the entire process, and is available on any device, wherever and whenever it is needed. It's also easy to implement and can be fully operational and ready for you to use yet this term.

Five Potential Key Impacts of CARES Act Expiration for Students and Schools

In our July Insight, we talked about the CARES Act and our Return to Repayment Outreach to help your students reenter repayment. This month we look into the potential challenges for students and financial aid offices after the Federal student loan repayment suspension ends. As a reminder, FFEL Loans and private loans held by lenders are not included in these changes.

Inceptia continues to monitor the Federal student loan suspension status with the understanding that the dates in this article are subject to change.

All delinquent borrowers as of March 13, 2020 were brought current and will be kept current until September 30, 2020. Everyone not making payments before March 13 were brought current without having to do anything. Some of these borrowers may have been on the verge of default and may not even know their loans are now current. On September 30, 2020 they will all reenter repayment at roughly the same time. For those that were on the edge of default, it will have been over 15 months since they have done anything on their student loans.

Some borrowers were in a suspended status such as a deferment or forbearance. These borrowers started that suspension before March 13, 2020, and should have come out of that status before September 30, 2020. Since the servicers are ensuring that no borrower goes beyond 31 days delinquent, these borrowers may forget that they had payments coming due. With the provisions of the CARES Act, these borrowers may not be engaged until after September 30, 2020.

Massive job loss for both student borrowers and parents. It is likely there will be more borrowers unable to start repayment. The CARES Act is providing temporary relief, but borrowers will need to determine a repayment plan option that fits within their budget once the Act expires.

Increased number of borrowers renewing IDRs at the same time. Under guidance from the United Stated Department of Education, IDR plans that expire after March 13, 2020, but before September 30, 2020 will automatically have their renewal deadline extended. This could be for up to six months after the original expiration or only through September 30, 2020.

Based on previous experience with natural disasters, it is predicted that when repayment resumes, there will be an influx of delinquent borrowers. These borrowers will be more challenging to resolve because all borrowers who could not, or chose not to, make payments, will reenter repayment at the same time. Restarting all at once will likely result in a large number of borrowers becoming 60 days delinquent at the same time creating a larger number of borrowers requiring repayment guidance at once.

Early Engagement Equals A Better Outcome.Inceptia can help with Return to Repayment Outreach, a proactive outreach to borrowers to remind them of resuming repayments and determining if there are any additional challenges will put them on the right track to for successfully fulfilling their repayment obligations without falling behind.

Keeping it Cool: Leveraging Emotional Intelligence for Better Communication Outcomes

Matters of money are big in people’s lives – maybe now more than ever. The Financial Aid Office knows this all too well. How do we handle interactions with students that show we care, want to be of service, and that we want them to succeed even when we might not be able to tell them what they want to hear? One answer may be in enhancing our Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in an effective and positive way. A high Emotional Intelligence helps individuals communicate better, reduce their anxiety and stress, defuse conflicts, improve relationships, empathize with others, listen effectively, and successfully work through many of life's challenges.

Join us on August 11 as our guest Evan Roth, Principal and Executive Coach of Roth Consultancy International, guides us through an exploration of some Emotional Intelligence components. Register now.

Loan Summary Can Help Jog Memories, Prepare for Repayment

The CARES Act was a tremendous help to student loan borrowers, freezing federal loans and suspending payments. But, as we all know, out of sight can often mean out of mind!

It’s natural that your students may have put their federal loans on the mental backburner, but unless additional legislation is passed, loan repayment activity will begin again in just a few months. Now is the time to help students by getting them back into the habit of monitoring their loans and potentially preparing for repayment.

Loan Summary can do just that. We can help current students get a handle on what they’ve already borrowed as they prepare to finance their upcoming academic year, and we can prompt former students to review their options and make repayment choices that will provide them with the greatest financial relief. Combined with the robust financial education and career planning resources available via our supplemental Student Knowledge HQ site, students receive both the information and guidance necessary to take steps toward true financial empowerment.

New Financial Avenue Features

We are excited to bring new resources to Financial Avenue, just in time for the start of the new academic year!

Beginning this fall, we will introduce a series of all new lesson plans to the Educator Toolkit. These lesson plans will include a presenter primer to familiarize the educator with the topic, and a corresponding PowerPoint with speaker notes. A comprehensive list of resources will also be included to help supplement the topic and student discussion – everything you need to continue the financial education discussion through class meetings, workshops, presentations, and more!

The lesson plans introduce timely topics not found in the courses, like Eating Well On A Budget, The Racial Wealth Divide, and Managing Money During a Crisis, with new topics added over the coming months.

Just 10% More: Increasing Financial Avenue Engagement

On July 15, Inceptia hosted a webinar for Financial Avenue clients to share ideas and best practices to increase student utilization of the program. Taking a realistic approach, we focused on how you may be able to target your efforts to reach “just 10% more” of students – an achievable goal that can have big results.

If this sounds like just the kind of information you’re looking for, we recommend taking a look at our Best Practices for Colleges or see success stories on how other schools are achieving with Financial Avenue.

If you missed the webinar but would like to view the recording, just send us an email at talktous@inceptia.org.

Financial Avenue as a Drawing Board to Launch Artistic Careers

Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, commonly referred to as FIDM, knew they had a creatively savvy group but wanted to find a way to help them be money savvy, too. During their search for a financial education platform, they needed an outside-of the-box approach. Find out how FIDM uses Financial Avenue as a requirement to help students understand their money and use it wisely.

Upcoming Webinars
Wed, Aug 5 · 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. CT
Find out how PJ Advisor, our virtual professional judgement platform can streamline the professional judgement process for your students and your school.
Tues, Aug 11 · 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. CT
Our guest speaker will explore Emotional Intelligence components and how awareness, listening, reframing and regulation can serve ourselves and students.
Tues, Aug 25 · 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. CT
Join us for an interactive session of sharing ideas on how to help students achieve some quick wins to improve their confidence, skills and knowledge, one baby step at a time.
Anytime · Anywhere
Listen and view on-demand webinars including industry professional panels, skills management sessions and so much more.
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