Assistant Director of Financial Aid & Scholarships, Counseling
Saint Mary's College of California
Application
Details
Posted: 29-Jan-25
Location: Moraga, California
Type: Full-time
Internal Number: 5960189
Assistant Director of Financial Aid & Scholarships, Counseling
Job Type Full-time
Summary
Reporting to the Associate Director, this position is responsible for providing proactive counseling and advising to undergraduate and graduate level students in the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Divinity. The Financial Aid Counselor assists with the administration of federal, state, and/or institutional aid programs and evaluates financial aid applications to determine student eligibility. The Counselor collects data and keeps accurate records to ensure compliance with relevant policies, procedures, and regulations.
Essential Job Functions
Provide in-person, over the phone, and over email advising and counseling for students, parents, and others seeking information and assistance with all aspects of the financial aid application, eligibility, and disbursement process. Advise and assist students and others over the phone and by email and mail regarding financial aid questions and issues.
Utilize professional judgment to accommodate and counsel students regarding special circumstances. Review special circumstances presented by the student in-person or by means of written requests. Make appropriate revisions to student eligibility, cost of attendance or financial aid to accommodate the circumstances that are within the law and institutional policy and funding guidelines, and defensible.
Perform community outreach at workshops in a variety of settings, including on and off campus, day, evening, and weekend venues. Coordinate presentations with sponsoring groups and other presenters, determining in advance the appropriate equipment needed and handouts and materials to be provided.
Review a variety of reports such as outside aid, ISIR load, change in program or major, loan processing, federal verification, comparing new data to previously recorded data, analyzing data for reasonableness and consistency with other information, contacting outside parties or students when necessary for clarification, making determinations as to how this affects student eligibility, adjusting the aid package and notifying students of changes.
Cross trained in many other important office tasks and acted as primary backups for other team members in the office for important system loads, special programs, reconciliation, work study, state programs, and more.
Determines financial aid eligibility for new students through the packaging process according to federal, state and institutional requirements, monitors individual student awards, resolves data conflicts and over awards.
Assist with development and maintenance of financial aid policy and procedures manual.
Review federal and state written updates and attend training and information meetings to maintain current knowledge of regulatory and institutional changes and policies relative to financial aid.
Monitors incomplete aid applications and proactively reaches out to students to assist with the completion of their financial aid tasks.
Hire and manage 7+ student workers in the financial aid office. This includes developing and conducting onboarding and training, scheduling, assigning daily responsibilities, monthly 1:1's, and end of year performance reviews
Administrative or liaison activities unique to assigned programs. Requirements
Required Qualifications
Minimum of a bachelor's degree
1-2 years of experience working in financial aid
Valid U.S. driver's license and passport
Proficiency with Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Slate
The foundation for everything we do at Saint Mary's is our mission: To probe deeply the mystery of existence by cultivating the ways of knowing and the arts of thinking. Recognizing that the paths to knowledge are many, Saint Mary's College of California offers a diverse curriculum that includes the humanities, arts, sciences, social sciences, education, business administration and nursing, serving traditional students and adult learners in both undergraduate and graduate programs. As an institution where the liberal arts inform and enrich all areas of learning, it places special importance on fostering the intellectual skills and habits of mind, which liberate persons to probe deeply the mystery of existence and live authentically in response to the truths they discover. This liberation is achieved as faculty and students, led by wonder about the nature of reality, look twice, ask why, seek not merely facts but fundamental principles, strive for an integration of all knowledge and express themselves precisely and eloquently. To affirm and foster the Christian understanding of the human person which animates the educational mission of the Catholic Church. Saint Mary's College holds... that the mystery which inspires wonder about the nature of existence is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ giving a transcendent meaning to creation and human existence. Nourished by its Christian faith, the College understands the intellectual and spiritual journeys of the human person to be inextricably connected. It promotes the dialogue of faith and reason: it builds community among its members through the celebration of the church's sacramental life; it defends the goodness, dignity and freedom of each person, and fosters sensitivity to social and ethical concerns. Recognizing that all those who sincerely quest for truth contribute to and enhance its stature as a Catholic institution of higher learning, Saint Mary's welcomes members from its own and other traditions, inviting them to collaborate in fulfilling the spiritual mission of the College. To create a student-centered educational community whose members support one another with mutual understanding and respect. As a Lasallian college, Saint Mary's holds that students are given to its care by God and that teachers grow spiritually and personally when their work is motivated by faith and zeal. The College seeks students, faculty, administrators and staff from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds who come together to grow in knowledge, wisdom and love. A distinctive mark of a Lasallian school is its awareness of the consequences of economic and social injustice and its commitment to the poor. Its members learn to live "their responsibility to share their goods and their service with those who are in need, a responsibility based on the union of all men and women in the world today and on a clear understanding of the meaning of Christianity." (From: The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration).The foundation for everything we do at Saint Mary's is our mission: To probe deeply the mystery of existence by cultivating the ways of knowing and the arts of thinking. Recognizing that the paths to knowledge are many, Saint Mary's College of California offers a diverse curriculum that includes the humanities, arts, sciences, social sciences, education, business administration and nursing, serving traditional students and adult learners in both undergraduate and graduate programs. As an institution where the liberal arts inform and enrich all areas of learning, it places special importance on fostering the intellectual skills and habits of mind, which liberate persons to probe deeply the mystery of existence and live authentically in response to the truths they discover. This liberation is achieved as faculty and students, led by wonder about the nature of reality, look twice, ask why, seek not merely facts but fundamental principles, strive for an integration of all knowledge and express themselves precisely and eloquently. To affirm and foster the Christian understanding of the human person which animates the educational mission of the Catholic Church. Saint Mary's College holds that the mystery which inspires wonder about the nature of existence is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ giving a transcendent meaning to creation and human existence. Nourished by its Christian faith, the College understands the intellectual and spiritual journeys of the human person to be inextricably connected. It promotes the dialogue of faith and reason: it builds community among its members through the celebration of the church's sacramental life; it defends the goodness, dignity and freedom of each person, and fosters sensitivity to social and ethical concerns. Recognizing that all those who sincerely quest for truth contribute to and enhance its stature as a Catholic institution of higher learning, Saint Mary's welcomes members from its own and other traditions, inviting them to collaborate in fulfilling the spiritual mission of the College. To create a student-centered educational community whose members support one another with mutual understanding and respect. As a Lasallian college, Saint Mary's holds that students are given to its care by God and that teachers grow spiritually and personally when their work is motivated by faith and zeal. The College seeks students, faculty, administrators and staff from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds who come together to grow in knowledge, wisdom and love. A distinctive mark of a Lasallian school is its awareness of the consequences of economic and social injustice and its commitment to the poor. Its members learn to live "their responsibility to share their goods and their service with those who are in need, a responsibility based on the union of all men and women in the world today and on a clear understanding of the meaning of Christianity." (From: The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the World Today: A Declaration).