Academic Advising & Financial Aid Specialist

Department
 

Harris School Academic and Financial Aid Advising Sub Group

About the Department
 

Why Policy? For a better world. Why Harris Public Policy? Because when it comes to better policymaking, evidence matters. We work at the frontiers of data collection and analysis, using the latest technology and social science methods to design policies that work for society. We conduct rigorous inquiry in an environment of innovation and risk taking. We collaborate across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, adopting new methodologies to drive better solutions. We engage with our city, our world, and our leaders every day to evaluate and test our ideas. And we lead with our passion for driving social change, knowing that passion alone does not equal impact.

Job Summary
 

The Harris School of Public Policy is known for its outstanding student support. Academic advisors are key to the student experience, serving as a central point of contact for advisees questions on nearly all elements of their academic experience. In addition to the key work of assisting with course selection and tracking students’ progress toward the degree, Harris advisors also provide support to students facing personal challenges that impact their academic progress and create programs and systems to help students get the most out of their graduate school experience and become maximally impactful policy leaders.

The Academic Advising and Financial Aid Specialist will be responsible for advising a caseload of public policy master’s students. This positon works within a team of academic advisors in the Harris Public Policy Dean of Students’ team.

In addition to the academic advising responsibilities this position will provide support in student financial aid processing, including making enrollment-based adjustments to scholarship aid, monitoring the financial aid inbox, answering student questions regarding their financial aid, and maintaining accurate tracking of enrollment and scholarship expenditures.

The Academic Advising Specialist is integral in helping students to achieve their academic and personal goals and will contribute significantly to initiatives that enhance the overall student experience at Harris. They will work on a highly collaborative, high-performing, and student-focused team. This position has growth and promotion potential for a high-performing individual.

Responsibilities

• Academic Advising:

• Serve as Academic Advisor to 125-175 master’s students.

• Serve as first point of contact for all needs for assigned advisees. Learn essentials of financial aid, billing, registration, and campus services to best assist students.

• Conduct intake advising meetings with all advisees at the beginning of the year.

• Keep accurate advising notes in a database/CRM system (Salesforce).

• Monitor each student’s progress toward degree completion, intervening appropriately as needed

• Conduct accurate graduation degree audits for all advisees.

• Gain expertise about Harris curriculum and courses in other divisions at the University to best guide student course selection.

• Collaborate with other student-facing offices to best understand programmatic and career opportunities which enhance the student experience.

• Identify and communicate student needs and interests to Harris Administration to help shape curriculum and co-curricular offerings.

• Create official letters and other necessary documentation for students’ scholarship providers and other sponsors as needed.

• Monitor all advisees enrollments and update tuition projections each month.

• Serve as a support for Harris’ large international student population, including assisting advisees with CPT and OPT paperwork and acting as a liaison to the Office of International Affairs (OIA).

• Coordinate the creation of resources for all advisors to share information.

• Collaborate extensively with the Harris academic advising team to ensure alignment in practices and give students the best possible service.

• Collaborate with the Associate Dean of Students or Dean of Students on leaves of absence and other complex student cases.

• Financial Aid :

• Collaborate with the Associate Director of Academic Advising & Financial Aid on aid adjustments for leaves of absence, reduced course loads, unapplied aid, or other irregular enrollments that require aid adjustments.

• Manage scholarship application for incoming masters students in collaboration with Student Recruitment & Global Outreach Team, central Graduate Financial Aid, and the Pearson Institute (for Pearson Fellows).

• Apply enrollment deposits