Electronic processes streamline scholarship distribution

The days of students waiting weeks for scholarship checks to be issued, then standing in line to pick them up are drawing to a close in many parts of campus, as a new electronic scholarship program spreads to more and more units.

That’s great news for students, but it’s also a welcome change for the administrators who are responsible for disbursing financial aid and overseeing scholarship administration.

An electronic scholarship project — developed by the bursar’s office, the Office of Student Financial Services, accounting services and the Division of Information Technology — allows scholarship money to be deposited directly against a student’s tuition bill, streamlining the distribution process and allowing awards to be coordinated with financial aid packages.

The new program was tested in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the School of Education. In CALS, which annually awards half a million dollars in scholarships to about 400 students, student services coordinator Janine Jensen and systems analyst Barb Avery had already completely revamped the scholarship process, developing a customized computer-based system.

According to Avery and Jensen’s calculations, the new system allows for more accurate accounting of the scholarship money, which has resulted in more funds available for students and saves 40 hours of faculty time, 240 hours of staff time and about $900 in printing and mailing costs — but to collect their checks, students still had to stand in a line that often stretched out the door.

The bursar’s office recognized that CALS was a perfect test case for their new disbursement system, and in January of 2005 the first awards were posted to CALS students’ accounts. Work is now under way to extend the program to other schools, colleges and departments and to add broader functions to the system.