Financial Aid Policies and Incentives
Students routinely cite financial issues and related demands as reasons they leave EMU. National data
also supports a lack of financial resources as one of the primary reasons students depart from college or
do not perform at their highest academic levels. A substantial proportion of EMU students are eligible
for Pell Grants and other incentives.
Current/Past Strategies: In recent years, EMU has increased financial aid investment in recognition that
this is one of the primary ways to assist students in managing and meeting their educational goals.
Along with these increases in total aid spending, the institution has begun to consider and offer aid
packages in ways that are designed to incentivize full enrollment, successful course completion and
progress to degree. In terms of enhancing student services, Service EMU was created as a one stop
shop location within the student union to provide information and assistance with several types of
student business concerns (e.g. financial aid, records and registration, identification cards). To assist
students interested in minimizing debt accumulation, EMU instituted a limited program (CAP) that
allowed students to work at a subset of institutional jobs in exchange for free on-campus room and
board. This allowed students to direct other support and financial aid monies towards tuition, fees,
books and incidental living expenses.
Recommended Key Actions:
Better understand why students stop-out and depart from EMU: Anecdotal evidence about EMU
students suggest that individuals frequently give financial struggles as one of the primary reasons they
stop out from EMU or stop their education completely. We need to conduct a more comprehensive and
rigorous analysis to understand more fully the reasons students stop out and leave. This broad based
analysis ought to be supplemented and deepened with information from focus group and surveys
regarding the details and nuances for each factor provided. We should more fully understand the
nature and scope of what students mean when they indicate financial or other reasons for departing or
delaying their studies. Aid and scholarship policies and programs ought to be structured based on the
findings of these investigations as well as on published research studies on these topics.
Restructure Gift Aid to Scholarships in order to incentivize academic success and progress to degree: In
the past, students with institutional gift aid awards were simply required to file the FAFSA form each
year, meet EMU academic standing policies (e.g. not be dismissed) and meet federal Satisfactory
Academic Progress (SAP) requirements to continue receiving funding each year. Recently, gift aid
packages have been re-structured to mirror scholarship awards with a credit hour enrollment and
cumulative GPA minimum required (15 credits/semester, 2.75 GPA). Also, the awards are granted for a
limited number of semesters depending on when a student enters EMU (FTIAC, transfer, etc). We
recommend that EMU monitor these awards and carefully analyze the impact of this restructuring on
the enrollment, retention and graduation rates of students who receive these new packages. Decisions
about future aid packaging should be based, at least in part, on what this analysis finds about the impact
of award requirements on academic success, retention and graduation. We should also carefully
evaluate the aid packages provided to our most at-risk students- those who come in on the margins of
our admissions requirements who also present high levels of financial need (e.g. Pell eligible). Current
aid packages for these students may not provide enough support to allow for students to focus
sufficiently on academic performance and engagement early on in their academic careers. We ought to
carefully consider providing these students with performance based awards that would incentivize and
reward successful academic performance.
Appeal Process- Communication planning, analysis and possible expansion: A new scholarship appeal
process was implemented in May 2013 that allows students to appeal the withdrawal of scholarship
funds based on the criteria above. The appeal process provides students the opportunity to apply for
continuation of scholarship support if they can document short term, extenuating conditions that may
have impacted their academic performance. If approved, conditions are established and in conjunction
with staff, they develop appropriate plans that allow them to continue on aid. This provides them an
opportunity to return to the performance levels required to continue their scholarship automatically.
Many students are not yet aware of this appeal process and a communications plan to increase visibility
and awareness should be undertaken to raise those levels across students and other campus groups.
The plan should also include how to link this policy and appeal process to efforts to support students
developing academic support plans through advising, Holman Success Center and other student support
areas.
Investigate Graduation and Academic Incentives: EMU should investigate and evaluate the effectiveness
of programs that provide students financial incentives to finish their degrees in a timely and
academically challenging fashion. These programs should include block tuition models (rather than
straight per credit hour charges for tuition and fees), differential program tuition based on cost and
market demand for program, reward payments for timely degree completion, unique study abroad
support models and institutional loan or savings programs that allow parents and students to pre-pay or
re-structure payments over differing time periods. Not all of these models will fit well with our student
profile or prove to be successful in pilot programs at other campuses, but we should systematically
analyze them and decide which, if any, might have value for EMU students and the institution.
Expand and publicize the CAP Program: EMU should consider expanding this program to work in
exchange for free room and board. As part of any expansion, we should more widely publicize its
existence both within and beyond the institution as has potential to demonstrate innovative and
responsible approach to funding costs of education. The initial program was limited in scope but there
is an opportunity to create a larger and more diverse group of jobs where students could work. A
program of this kind would provide students financial support that would allow them to graduate with
lower debt burdens and potential work experience that improves their job prospects at that time.
Enhance facilities and technology in order to deliver information and services to students in an effective
and accessible manner: Many offices on campus currently provide a good deal of material online for
student review and use including forms, explanatory materials and video clips and contact information.
These resources need to be enhanced to allow for a new, more comprehensive and individualized level
of service to students. These enhancements should include the ability to easily target communications
to particular groups of students at times and through means most likely to communicate messages
effectively. They should include easy access to social media tools and recognize the evolving nature of
modern technology and preferred modes of student communication (e.g. texting, mobile devices, real
time video chats, etc). How messages are sent can at times be as important as the content of the
messages themselves. Also, EMU should evaluate further opportunities to integrate services across
offices into single contact points (single office counter, web location, text address, etc). This should be
approached from a student friendly perspective, asking how students experience these services rather
than how we organize ourselves institutionally.