Our February 2024 Team Spotlight is Jason Mellen. Jason began his career in 2009 and has worked across higher education in admissions, information technology, residential life, and financial aid. As one of our newest Senior Consultants, he uses his technological prowess to support campus partners and develop innovative ways to approach problems in the workplace. Jason has earned a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communication Technology as well as a Master of Education from Bowling Green State University. He is currently enrolled in a Doctoral Program at National University.
What do you like most about being a consultant?
I’ve never met someone in enrollment who doesn’t have more things to do than they have time to do it. I like that consulting gives you the opportunity to look at how different institutions complete everyday tasks and then create protocols so that financial aid offices can move forward productively. Humans make mistakes and the more you can systemize things, the more you can reduce the chance of error and integrate practices that help remove barriers for students. Over time, you build this library of knowledge and resources that you bring to the next client that you work with.
What do you enjoy about working for College Aid Services?
I enjoy it because it’s an organization with a lot of people who have diverse backgrounds, diverse experience, who have worked at a lot of schools, so you have a large group people to bounce ideas off of, you can get a network of experts, I can go to someone who is expert with compliance and there are people who are more technical. You grow as you share those resources back and forth as you work with more schools. It’s a fun group to work with, people are friendly, everyone is out there to help each other out.
What areas do you specialize in?
I would say that I specialize in bridging the gap between the campus leaders, functional users like financial aid counselors, and highly technical users in the IT department. I can look at a problem from a strategic perspective and also dive into the code and see how things work on a technical level and also serve as a connector between campus leadership and technical experts. I also do well looking at things as a larger system, I focus on how can we manipulate and utilize tools for our benefit – to do things that maybe it wasn’t designed to do and find creative ways to utilize technology to our advantage. translating all three of the stakeholders
How do you stay up to date with regulations and policy changes?
I stay updated with regulations through webinars from College Aid Services and professional organizations. I follow a lot of the user groups from Ellucian Banner because even if it’s not a product-related, a lot of their updates end up and I make it a point during my down time to look for updates from certain places like national associations websites, FSA, and see what kind of updates they have. Especially with the FAFSA update, I try to find as much information as I can because we don’t know what issues are going to come up and I want to have some options tested beforehand.
What challenges do you see on the horizon in Financial Aid?
I think the big one is that we are expecting more competitive enrollment at these schools and there’s more and more pressure to meet budget goals. It’s the same challenges that we’ve been facing but we need to be more strategic in how we deal with leveraging financial aid packages. It’s not just a simple matter of hitting an enrollment goal, you have to be more a lot more creative in targeting certain populations with awards to really maximize your spending. That approach can present a learning curve to schools without experience in financial aid leveraging and without the resources to implement it on top of existing demands. And then it comes down to figuring out what the trends in higher education are going to be and a school that has programs that aren’t in demand might have to rethink their aid structure.
What advice would you give to a new Financial Aid officer?
It is important for newer professionals to understand the “how” and “why” of processes or regulations. Having strong background knowledge will enable you to grow in the profession and find ways to help students. While you don’t need to know everything all at once, it helps to start mapping out what you don’t know and have a plan to learn it. Start thinking about trends and how you can use data to help in your role. Making time for professional development is important amidst the day to day work.
What do you like to do when you are not doing Financial Aid?
When I’m not doing financial aid, I’m usually doing research for my PhD program. I only have a year and a half left, so that consumes a lot of my time. I do enjoy being involved in local community events like theatre or improv troupes; I love to read and work on craft projects when I’m at home. I also work on the planning committee for the Brevard Renaissance Festival every year – this will be my 9th consecutive year. I never knew that a renaissance fair would need so much IT assistance, so I definitely feel like I make a difference given what I do for a living.
If you are interested in joining Jason and the rest of our College Aid Services team, review our current openings here. To learn more about how College Aid Services can help your institution, contact us at info@collegeaidservices.net or by phone toll-free at 833-GETCAS1 (833-438-2271).