Insight Newsletter
September 3, 2020
It’s a Great Time to Share Great Advice for Parents

The 2020 edition of Great Advice for Parents is now available! An annual favorite, this free e-guide provides high school students and their families with the critical information they need now to make college admission and financial aid decisions, including special COVID-19 considerations.

Share this invaluable resource with your students, prospective students, campus departments or anyone who needs a little great advice.

Help Students Manage their Borrowing with Loan Summary

The pandemic has caused many students to take stock of their finances, with 60% reporting their financial literacy has increased over the past few months. This is an unexpected but welcome byproduct of these uncertain times, and shows that students are seeking financial empowerment and control over their money.

Let’s help them achieve that with Loan Summary. Modeled after the successful “debt letter” initiatives from across the country, Loan Summary bridges the gap between entrance and exit counseling to help students better understand the connection between current borrowing and future outcomes.

Students want to learn – let’s keep the momentum going! Read more about Loan Summary or contact your Assistant Vice President of Business Development for a demo.

Three Key Factors to Helping Student Borrowers Successfully Reenter Student Loan Repayment

For the last two months we’ve touched on the CARES Act and the borrower challenges your office may face anticipating the initial September 30 end date. With the executive order for extension through December 31, there is even more time for students to get out of the habit of paying attention to their student loans as they add another semester of cost.

Let’s take a look at how students can be helped with reentering repayment for the best possible outcome. And, if you need help in any of these areas, our Return to Repayment Outreach offers resources, multi-touch communication and student loan borrowing counselors to extend the reach of your team in connecting with students.

Offer student borrowers resources. When borrowers do have questions, make resources easy to find. With Return to Repayment Outreach, Inceptia has student advocate counselors ready to answer student borrower questions through Student Knowledge HQ, chat and a simple phone call. Knowing where to find information will help students prepare for the next step, so their student loans are one less concern.

Stay in touch throughout this process. It will be far easier for student borrowers to work through current repayment issues now than when repayment resumes and everyone enters repayment together. If borrowers can make payments now, the zero interest rate can help reduce their principle. If they can’t make payments, this is a great time to renew or enroll for an Income Driven Repayment (IDR) plan. These plans can be changed when income changes significantly.

We are all in this together and patience and empathy will be key. Many times with personal hardship, financial hardship follows so even the simplest of questions might be the first question. An empathetically fresh ear to each borrowers concerns will help get to the root of the information you need to determine the next steps in counseling and recommendations

How are you processing your financial aid review requests?

While many students want to come back to school, they may need a change in their financial aid to do so and the process can be daunting.

PJ Advisor, a virtual professional judgement platform, can streamline the process for your students and your school. Developed with the student and administrator in mind, PJ Advisor is easy to use, paperlessly streamlines the process, and is available on any device, wherever and whenever it is needed. It's also easy to implement, customizable to manage other financial requests, such as emergency aid, and can be ready for you to use yet this term. Contact your representative and get started.

Introducing Financial Avenue Lesson Plans – New Content!

Based on your feedback, we know that you want new Financial Avenue content, as well as new ways to engage students with the program. With that in mind, we are excited to announce the addition of Financial Avenue lesson plans to your administrator portal.

Located within the Educator Toolkit, these lesson plans allow you to conduct your own webinars, workshops, class discussions – however you choose to use them! The plans include an educator guide with resources, as well as a PowerPoint Presentation.

Lesson plans will continue to be added over the coming months, including timely and relevant topics such as the racial wealth divide, women and finance, and how to manage money during a crisis.

Still not sure how to increase Financial Avenue participation at your campus? Just ask us! We’re here to help with tips and best practices from around the country. Contact your Inceptia Business Development team representative or our Client Support team for more information.

Making Verification Easier

Verification Gateway (VG) reduced the workload among staff for the Louisiana Community and Technical College System and enabled more student-centric service.

Implementing Verification Gateway allowed staff to spend less time verifying and more time helping students with other financial aid components. VG provided efficient and timely verification processing as well as solid customer support to both staff and students.

Hear how others use VG in these webinar replays:

What does the 2020-21 Financial Aid office look like?
Our financial aid expert panel discusses what might be ahead for the many duties of financial aid including verification, appeals, and loan repayment.

Managing Verification While Everything is Changing Around It
A panel of financial aid experts talk through how the verification challenges are changing and actions we can take to mitigate them.

Check Out our Updated FAFSA Toolkit
Join the 30-minute webinar to learn more.

FAFSA Toolkit has kept pace! Our newly redesigned site reflects myriad resources for you to share with students regarding new processes, sites and links that FSA has rolled out on studentaid.gov.

If you’re not familiar with our free FAFSA Toolkit, or just want to see our refreshed resources, we invite you to register for our express webinar Tuesday, September 15 at 12:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. CT.

NEWS & EVENTS