HES COMPLIANCE SERVICES

The administration of financial aid presents many opportunities and risks related to compliance with federal and state financial aid regulations. Higher Ed Strategies, LLC (HES) is dedicated to helping clients minimize and manage such risk by providing clients assistance with the evaluation and development of institutional polices and procedures that provide the necessary internal controls.

We have found that each institution has a unique set of needs and may require some combination of these services. HES can provide your institution the following services as well as services designed to meet specific needs:
 

• Financial Aid Compliance Evaluations
• Financial Aid Operational Audits
• Tuition Discount & Net Revenue Reviews
• Competitive Market Financial Aid Analysis
• Financial Aid Policy and Procedure Evaluation and Manual Development
   

FINANCIAL AID COMPLIANCE EVALUATIONS

Financial Aid Compliance Evaluations benefit both the institution in need of compliance improvement and the well-run financial aid office. The value of this service is that it provides an impartial third party review of how well an institution is meeting compliance requirements before an audit or federal program review results in findings. This service is helpful for institutions experiencing staff turnover as it ensures that necessary policies and procedures are in place.
 

FINANCIAL AID OPERATIONAL AUDITS

A Financial Aid Operational Audit helps institutions identify and develop strategies for improving customer service to students. In today's competitive student market, this is a vital component of success for both recruiting and retaining students. top
 

TUITION DISCOUNT & NET REVENUE REVIEWS

A Tuition Discount and Net Revenue Review provides a review of an institution's tuition discount rate and net revenue goals. It includes an evaluation of the understanding and application of tuition discounting across campus constituents, helps identify the influencers of the discount rate at the institution, and helps determine whether the financial aid awarding strategies are aligned with discounting and net revenue goals. top
 

HES COMPETITIVE MARKET FINANCIAL AID ANALYSIS

The benefit of this service is that it helps an institution make its financial aid strategies, policies and procedures competitive with overlap institutions. This helps improve admission and retention efforts. top
 

HES FINANCIAL AID POLICY AND PROCEDURE EVALUATION AND MANUAL DEVELOPMENT

The HES Financial Aid Policy, Procedure and Internal Control Evaluation service offers clients more than the delivery of a written document based on existing boilerplate language. This service capitalizes on the combined financial aid experience of our consultants, each having expertise in a wide range of settings including traditional semester based programs, for-profit and non-standard term programs. It employs a comprehensive, research-based, iterative process designed to review existing written and non-written policy. During the process, we identify compliance gaps and make recommendations based on current industry standards and best practices to reduce exposure to federal financial aid liability.

During the manual development process, we help the client organize, review and express unwritten existing policies and procedures to achieve the following objectives:
 

• Identify Federal and state financial aid compliance gaps
• Make recommendations to address compliance gaps
• Organize information in a systematic manner so that it can be easily searched and carried forward in times of personnel changes
• Make recommendations that supplement current policy when appropriate
• Eliminate duplicate and contradictory language and policies
• Address multiple student populations, campuses, and programs
• Format information and data in a “living” dynamic manual that can be easily updated as necessary
• Additional volumes can be added to incorporate financial aid policies that are interrelated with other areas including admissions, student services and bursary functions

To achieve the following benefits:
 

• Reduce financial aid compliance risk and financial liability that can result during compliance audits and federal program reviews
• Improves continuity of work flow during periods of staff turnover
• Improve operating efficiency across functions that support compliance
• Perform due diligence prior to the sale or transfer of ownership of a school or program
• Documentation is in an electronic format that can be accessed by institution’s intranet
• Each manual is reviewed by a CPA who has conducted compliance reviews for more than 20 years
• Tracking of text changes and authorship during the development phase
• Helps staff contribute to high - quality customer service top