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Financial Aid:What is the Marketer’s Role?
December 11, 2018
2018-19 Webinar and Workshop Schedule
Date Time Event Topic
9/5/2018 12:00 Webinar Last-Minute Families and Retention
10/10/2018 9:00 Workshop Networking and Idea Workshopping
11/14/2018 12:00 Webinar CSW and Enrollment Prep
12/12/2018 12:00 Webinar Financial Aid
1/16/2019 12:00 Webinar Tours and Follow-up/Tracking
2/6/2019 9:00 Workshop Branding, Materials, and Websites
3/13/2019 12:00 Webinar Customer Service
4/10/2019 12:00 Webinar Millennial Parents
5/15/2019 12:00 Webinar Summer Marketing Strategies
The OCS Resource Portal: bit.ly/OCSResourcePortal
2019 NCEA Convention
Contact Daniela Polanco at [email protected]
for more information and to volunteer
Important TCS Information: Key Dates
6
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View it in your browser.
We are excited to announce that the Big Shoulders Fund Tax Credit Scholarship Program
application will open for families on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 8:00am. We will
provide more details as they become available.
Visit www.bigshouldersfundsgo.org for more information and to view our updated FAQ's.
Big Shoulders Fund Tax Credit Scholarship Team
• December 17: OCS Webinar on TCS Year 2
• January 15: Empower Illinois SGO opens
• January 22: Big Shoulders Fund SGO opens
Tax Credit Scholarship information may be found at schools.archchicago.org/tax-credit-scholarships
Please ask your principal to forward you
any information related to TCS. We will do
our best to inform marketers, but email is
being sent to principals weekly.
This special broadcast contained two
important links:
• Letter to families from Dr. Jim Rigg (En.)
• “Backpack Stuffer” TCS fact sheet (En.)
Spanish translations are also available:
• Letter to families from Dr. Jim Rigg (Sp.)
• “Backpack Stuffer” TCS fact sheet (Sp.)
Important TCS Information: OCS Emails
7
Dear School Leaders,
We are excited to share with you – and your school families – important information on
how to apply for tax credit scholarships for the 2019/20 school year. We encourage you to
review the attached letter from Dr. Jim Rigg, Superintendent of Catholic Schools, and the
attached tax credit scholarship fact sheet. Please then distribute the letter and/or fact
sheet to your school families – either via email or hard copies – as soon as possible
today or early next week. We will have Spanish and Polish translations of the letter and
fact sheet available early next week that we will distribute to you via Special Broadcast.
Also, please save the date for a tax credit scholarship information webinar for school
leaders on Monday, December 17 at 10 a.m. The webinar will be geared towards new
principals, as well as any school leaders who want a refresher on tax credit scholarships.
More details will be shared with you next week.
We will continue to update you as we receive more information from the scholarship
granting organizations. In the meantime, please feel free to contact us at
[email protected] or 312.534.5321 with any questions.
Thank you,
The Office of Catholic Schools
DON’T FORGET
Before marketing TCS to a new audience, be sure to contact the following:
1. Current families receiving TCS
• Unfortunately, returning TCS families do not have a separate priority level
and will have to be prepared to apply as soon as the system is open.
2. Families who applied for TCS last year but were denied
3. Families who registered to apply for TCS last year, but did not apply
• Schools were sent a list of these families earlier this year and were also
able to download it from TADS. If you would like to receive this list again,
please contact Sean Murdock at [email protected]
Important TCS Information: Existing Interest
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Pew cards are an excellent way to collect
information from families during busy holiday
Masses.
Ideally, a student or parent would speak
about the school while parishioners complete
the cards. Ushers then collect them.
Volunteers should be available to speak to
families after Mass.
Download pew card templates on our portal*:
Sample TCS Pew Card: English
Sample TCS Pew Card: Spanish
Sample TCS Pew Card: Polish
Important TCS Information: A Pitch for Pew Cards
9* http://ocs.archchicago.org/MarketingOperations/EnrollmentManagement.aspx
The Matching Gift Program is an
excellent way to secure earmarked
TCS funds for your school.
Visit archchicago.org/tcs for more
information about this transformative
opportunity.
Important TCS Information: Matching Gifts
10
Families who are re-enrolling their students or enrolling a sibling of a
current student may now complete their registration online.
Online re-registration is available on their PowerSchool dashboard.
Please see the most recent AMEN newsletter or click the links below for
more information:
Webinar on using PowerSchool for online registration
Re-Registration: Admin Guide
Re-Registration: Parent Guide
Sibling Registration: Admin Guide
Sibling Registration: Parent Guide
PowerSchool Online Re-Registration
11
Financial Aid:What is the Marketer’s Role?
December 11, 2018
Many of our schools experience the following four conditions:
1. Diverse socio-economic communities, with families at widely varying
income levels
2. Under-enrollment, with large numbers of empty seats in certain sections
3. The published or “list” tuition rate is set at a level not affordable for
many of the families that can be served by the school
4. Insufficient funded scholarships for all who are in need and apply
Turning families away from open seats without offering them a need-based,
discounted tuition rate is both inconsistent with our values and an entirely
avoidable hit to our financial outcomes, even if school has no (more)
scholarship funding to use.
The Situation
13
1. Earlier “Fill the Plane” regimen
• Lack of consistent guidance on best practices
• Without supportive tools, some schools mis-discounted (too high –
students didn’t enroll; too low – schools capture little to no revenue)
• Other schools didn’t use any means-testing to set the “right” tuition
rate
2. Unproductive focus on managing “Unfunded Financial Aid”
• AoC’s budget template and recommendations have often
encouraged “managing” to a particular limit.
• Requiring funded aid or limiting unfunded aid in this context is
harmful to enrollment and financial results!
The Complication
14
• For any empty seat within a section, recruit families with
discounted tuition rates, subject to their verified need
• When there are no alternative applicants, filling that seat
with any revenue from a new family improves enrollment
and financial results
• Managing your financial aid program with clearly
communicated processes ensures success and satisfaction
for your staff and the community
The Solution
15
• Overall, the role of the marketer is to generate interest in the school. If
website traffic and phone calls increase and more families come in for
tours, the marketer is doing a great job. Converting a prospective family
to an enrolled family is NOT solely the responsibility for the marketer.
• We find that the primary reason families opt not to enroll even after
touring a school is affordability. Because schools tend to view marketers
in terms of new enrollment (not new interest), marketers need to
become part of the financial aid and tuition discounting process.
The Marketer’s Role in a School
16
• Understand the availability of financial aid – both funded
and unfunded – at your school
• Partner with your principal, business manager, pastor, and
other pertinent groups and people to implement a strong
financial aid and tuition discounting program
• If your school does not currently discount tuition or has
imposed a limit on the number or amount of discounts, be a
passionate advocate on behalf of families in need
The Marketer’s Role in Financial Aid
17
Download the Financial Aid Memo
• Financial Aid Committee
• Financial Aid Assessor
• Fill the Right Seats
• Variable Tuition Floor
• Making the Offer
Five Fundamentals of Financial Aid
18
• Typically a group of three to five that includes principal, pastor, business manager, marketer, finance council member, school board member (no current school parents)
• Financial Aid Committee’s process is the assurance to families that decisions are consistent, confidential and credible
• Principal and Pastor are able to make the process more fair and unbiased while still considering the specific need of each family
• Committee needs to assemble frequently enough to provide timely feedback to applications as they come in.
AoC team members are available to attend a meeting of your committee to help build and improve your procedures
1. Financial Aid Committee
19
• Schools should use 3rd party assessor to help determine reasonable and just financial aid offer for all applicants
• FACTS & SMART are the two AoC-endorsed financial aid programs
• FACTS Grant & Aid product is already required of schools for AoC’s Caritas
and Phoenix scholarship eligibility
• It is additional assurance to families that your process is unbiased
• 3rd party assessment is just one, albeit key, input into the Financial Aid Committee’s evaluation
• If the vendor fee is a barrier to families, waive the fee.
• FACTS can on ad hoc basis provide expedited review, if family’s decision is extremely time sensitive
2. Financial Aid Assessor
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• At start of recruiting season, understand your max enrollment
goal for each section
• If opportunity presents itself, you may not want max enrollment in
all sections. Carefully consider:
• Each teacher’s capability to support incrementally more students
• Total impact of larger numbers of new students, academically and culturally
• Never open an additional section unless your wait list has hit a
critical mass of new students
Financial aid is last step of schools’ admissions program, following the family and
school’s agreement that school/student is a good match academically, culturally, etc.
3. Fill the Right Seats
21
• Financial Aid Committee’s evaluation of each family should identify the minimum floor a family would be allowed to pay, subject to:
• The tuition rate the (incumbent) family has paid historically
• Local/demographic benchmarks to help Committee determine what is truly reasonable
• The School’s own (internally defined) minimum tuition floor(s)
• Committee should provide the “opening offer” and “min. floor” tuition rates to Principal.
• OCS will distribute a tool to help determine recommended tuition rates for individual families
• The Tuition Discounting Tool will greatly simplify this process
Most schools’ Pre-K programs are by far the lowest cost (non public school) option for PreK; We discourage any discounts below list for Pre-K.
4. Variable Tuition Floor
22
• Direct engagement by the Principal (or team member who has the best
relationship) with the family to make the offer is critical. It’s a key opportunity to:
• Build relationship between school and family
• Promote the value of your school esp. relative to alternatives
• Demonstrate the commitment the Parish and school are making in their child.
(E.g., cost/student is $6K; list tuition rate is $5K; actual offer is $2K. Meaning
school by itself is providing a $4K investment in their child!)
• Enable Principal to evaluate if and why “offered tuition rate” can and should
be dropped to “minimum tuition rate”
• Definitively measure and track instances where “minimum tuition rate” was
not low enough.
• AoC team is ready and available to role-play financial aid scenarios with you and your team.
5. Making the Offer
23
• Review the Financial Aid Memo and reach out to your Vicariate or Turnaround team with any questions
• Establish agreement with FACTS or SMART, if not already in place
• Ask your Vicariate/Turnaround team (DVO/DTO, SFM, MEM) for assistance in creating or improving your Financial Aid committee and process
• As soon as you’re ready, ensure availability of financial aid to families is communicated clearly and widely
• Especially contact (new) TCS applicants who were denied or waitlisted
Where do I begin?
24
Should I start advertising our financial aid program?
Yes, but Pastor and Principal should provide communications to the community as to
the objective and purpose of the school’s (new) financial aid program.
A tempered approach may be to pilot this program just with prospective families,
particularly by reaching out directly to new TCS applicants or RE families. But in any
case, school leadership should prepare to be proactively transparent to all community
members of this key program.
What if my current families find out about this program?
If you haven’t broadly communicated the existence of this program and a current family
approaches you about applying for aid, they should be allowed to do so.
Is this a one-size-fits-all approach?
We anticipate that this program will look a bit different at every school, but that the
fundamentals should be the same.
Frequently Asked Questions
25
Should I run every family through the financial aid process?
Only have families follow the process if they seek financial aid.
How long should this process take?
The faster, the better. Ideally, families would receive an offer within two weeks.
Should I ask families receiving financial aid to complete additional service hours?
We do not recommend adding extra requirements for families receiving aid. Their
discount is justified by their financial resources. They should be reminded, though, that
they are just as valuable as any other family and that their volunteer hours, support, and
referrals are incredibly important.
Who can I contact with questions about this process or the Tuition Discounting Tool?
Please contact your DVO/DTO, SFM or a member of the OCS Financial Aid Team (all
listed on the final slide of this presentation) with any questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
26
Tuition Discounting Tool
27
❶
Applicant (Parent/Guardian) Sample, Dale# Payments Payment Amount
K-8 Students 2 9 $497.78 ❹
List Tuition $7,300.00
Low Median High$2,665.00 $4,480.00 $6,420.00
❷
Family Self Reported Ability to Pay $3,000.00 ❺
Household Size 4 # Payments Payment Amount
9 $472.22 ❻
Number of Children/Dependents 2
Adjusted Gross Income $0.00 ❼
Total Family Income $35,000.00 # Payments Payment Amount
9 $400.00 ❽
Comments:
❸
❿
If working with the applicant(s) more than once, click this button to load into
this form the most recent data collected.
Following each meeting with the applicant(s) click this button to save the
most recent data collected in this form.❶
Recommended Tuition Range
❾
Financial Information
Tuition Rate Calculator
Family Information Recommended Tuition Offer
$4,480.00
Please do not share this form with applicants. Use this form to determine the most appropriate need-based, discounted tuition rate to
offer a family that is either new to your school for the 2018-19 school year or has been attending your school prior to the 2018-19 school
year but has not previously applied for financial aid.
Initial Tuition Offer
Final Agreed Tuition Amount
$3,600.00
$4,250.00
Applicant rejected the initial offer of $4250. Applicant felt that he could pay $400/month during the school year. Financial aid committee agreed
that this would be an acceptable amount. Talked to applicant about the referral program and he had some ideas of students from his previous
school who might be interested.
Re-Load Most Recent Decision Save Decisions
• Tuition Discounting Tool was
emailed to schools during the
2017-18 school year.
• A separate webinar on how to
use the tool is available on the
OCS Resource Portal.
• The OCS encourages the use of
this tool and endorses the
tuition ranges it recommends.
• Diligent use of this tool will help
increase enrollment and
revenue while finding a rate that
is just and affordable for every
family.
Note: This is different from the Tuition Setting Tool
Tuition Discounting Tool
28
❶
Applicant (Parent/Guardian) Sample, Dale# Payments Payment Amount
K-8 Students 2 9 $497.78 ❹
List Tuition $7,300.00
Low Median High$2,665.00 $4,480.00 $6,420.00
❷
Family Self Reported Ability to Pay $3,000.00 ❺
Household Size 4 # Payments Payment Amount
9 $472.22 ❻
Number of Children/Dependents 2
Adjusted Gross Income $0.00 ❼
Total Family Income $35,000.00 # Payments Payment Amount
9 $400.00 ❽
Comments:
❸
❿
If working with the applicant(s) more than once, click this button to load into
this form the most recent data collected.
Following each meeting with the applicant(s) click this button to save the
most recent data collected in this form.❶
Recommended Tuition Range
❾
Financial Information
Tuition Rate Calculator
Family Information Recommended Tuition Offer
$4,480.00
Please do not share this form with applicants. Use this form to determine the most appropriate need-based, discounted tuition rate to
offer a family that is either new to your school for the 2018-19 school year or has been attending your school prior to the 2018-19 school
year but has not previously applied for financial aid.
Initial Tuition Offer
Final Agreed Tuition Amount
$3,600.00
$4,250.00
Applicant rejected the initial offer of $4250. Applicant felt that he could pay $400/month during the school year. Financial aid committee agreed
that this would be an acceptable amount. Talked to applicant about the referral program and he had some ideas of students from his previous
school who might be interested.
Re-Load Most Recent Decision Save Decisions
• If you do not have a copy of the tuition discounting tool, please email Kurt
Lewis at [email protected] to request it.
Every family (regardless of financial aid status) should sign a tuition contract which includes:
• Payment amounts, processes and due dates
• Consequence for late or no payment
• Confidentiality clause
• St. Anonymous School works to ensure that the excellent education we provide is
affordable to all families. The process of determining a family’s need and providing financial
aid requires the sharing of sensitive, personal data. St. Anonymous will never share your
financial data or any information regarding this process with outside parties without your
consent. Likewise, we appreciate your discretion in this process as well. By signing this
tuition agreement, you acknowledge that you and your family will not share with other
families the nature of your financial aid agreement, the process of determining your level of
financial aid, the amount of tuition your family pays, the type or amount of scholarships you
are receiving, or any other information regarding your financial commitment to the school.
This information is all confidential. Failing to adhere to this agreement may put your
financial aid and/or enrollment status at risk.
• Necessary fundraising or service hours
• Information on referral incentives (if applicable)
• OCS will make a sample Tuition Contract available on the Portal
Tuition Collection Best Practices
29
1. Fundraising and Development
• Raising supplemental funds to support financial aid efforts is critical to long-term sustainability
• Annual appeals are the most effective fundraising efforts
2. Finding the Families
• MEMs will create and distribute language and best practices for advertising your financial aid program
• In the short term, your two best sources for prospective families are TCS and Religious Education
Two Future Fundamentals
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1. Check with your principal to find out if these practices have been
implemented or need to be refined
• We understand that some elements will take longer and that time
is running short with Catholic Schools Week fast approaching
2. Review the Tuition Discounting Tool with your principal and anyone
in your office who may deal with financial aid
• Email Kurt Lewis ([email protected]) if you need a copy
3. Contact any prospective families who showed interest but did not
enroll because of affordability
4. Spread the word about your school’s exciting new financial aid
program, particularly on your website
What to Do Next
31
The OCS Resource Portal: bit.ly/OCSResourcePortal
• Kurt Lewis
Director of Enrollment Marketing
• Katie Walleck
Marketing and Enrollment Manager, Vicariates 1 and 2
• Maura Daly
Marketing and Enrollment Manager, Vicariates 3 and 4
• Felicia Horton
Marketing and Enrollment Manager, Vicariates 5 and 6
• Dolores Alvarado
Marketing and Enrollment Manager, Turnaround Schools NW
• Debbie Campos
Marketing and Enrollment Manager, Turnaround Schools SE
Meet Your Enrollment Marketing Team
• Clare Sullivan
Director of Scholarships
• Sean Murdock
Finance & Analytics Director
• Bob Hudzik
Finance Consultant
• Kurt Lewis
Director of Enrollment Marketing
Thank you!
• Jason Yoshimura
Vicariate Finance Manager, Vic. I and II
• Brian Collins
Vicariate Finance Manager, Vic. III and IV
• Patricia Bruhn
Director of Turnaround Operations, Team 1
• Angela Frozena
Director of Turnaround Operations, Team 2
• Christina Tomaso
Director of Turnaround Operations, Team 3
34
Critical Contacts within the Office of Catholic Schools