Simplifying Financial Aid at the University of Tampa

Never a Dull Moment

Financial aid is an environment defined by change—new regulations, new student circumstances, new institutional policies, and a steady flow of questions from families trying to make sense of it all. Jackie thrives on that pace.

“I would get bored doing the same thing every day,” she explains. “There’s always something new and different…a new regulation, a new challenge, a student who comes in with a situation we hadn’t considered before.”

Her days start with Workday notifications and scheduled reports that flag students who need attention: an eligibility code update so federal aid will transmit successfully, an appeal needing review, a student who has to be repackaged, or a set of ICERs waiting to be processed. She extracts data for federal, state, and institutional reporting, builds pivot tables in Excel, and configures the system for upcoming award years—cost of attendance updates, ICER action items, packaging rules.

One of her current tasks? A business process with “about 250 rows.”

It’s intricate work, and she knows it. But the complexity is never the goal.