Tip of the Week

Good financial aid professionals know everything about financial aid.

Great financial aid professionals know everything about financial aid and know how to talk about it.

Okay, that may be an oversimplification. But for many financial aid professionals, communication does go beyond just being a job assignment. Many of you have a longing to communicate – to hear the issues of others (whether it be students or professionals) or to be heard yourself.

It was perhaps that same type of longing to communicate that laid the groundwork for our modern telephone system. That longing – to hear and be heard – may have prompted Alexander Graham Bell to invent the telephone. Tomorrow, March 7, is Alexander Graham Bell day – the day in 1876 on which he received the patent for the telephone.

Now, rather than crediting our modern communication tools for solving problems, you could blame technology for some of the ills we have today. (I know, I know – sometimes the paper FAFSA does sound like it would be easier!) But many of us are finding solace currently in the midst of our 2024-25 FAFSA woes by being able to share experiences and solutions.

So many good – no – so many great things come from our ability to communicate.

– By Catherine Mueller

Speaking of communicating, Federal Student Aid announced this morning that StudentAid.gov will have a planned outage this Friday, March 8 from 3 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern.