Five Tips to Help Private Schools Manage Non-Need-Based Discounts

Whether you call it financial aid, tuition assistance, student subsidy, or something else, private schools are managing more of it than ever before. Many families apply for tuition discounts based on financial need—and schools should be able to offer some aid without compromising financial sustainability—but what about all the “non-need-based” aid? From in-house merit awards to publicly funded vouchers and 3rd-party scholarships, schools must track, allocate, and report on those funds. Here are our top five tips to do so effectively.

1. Customize your financial aid calculations.

Ensure your software settings align with your priorities. Design a fair and equitable formula for need-based awards while considering your school’s mission, strategic plan, and enrollment goals—and get a comprehensive awarding view inclusive of non-need-based discounts.

2. Create budgets for each award source.

Your students may receive funding from school choice programs, Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs), merit awards, or various restricted funds set up by generous donors. Your financial aid software should empower you to create budgets for each award source, allocate those budgets to one or many students, and generate reports for each source.

3. Automate reallocation of unaccepted awards.

Inevitably, plans change and a family may choose not to enroll their child after applying for and receiving a tuition discount. By setting up budgets for each source, your system should automatically reallocate an award back to that budget if the family does not complete their enrollment contract, making funds available for another deserving student.

4. Enable bulk awarding.

With more than thirty U.S. states now operating school choice programs and a national one on the horizon, more and more families will be taking advantage of those opportunities. Rather than having to allocate those discounts individually, save time and effort by importing student lists in Excel or CSV format. This should work for other awards with multiple recipients, too!

5. Align financial aid with enrollment, billing, and accounting.

Establish ongoing communication between your enrollment, financial aid, and accounting teams. All stakeholders need visibility into how much aid is available, what outside sources are awarding aid to your students, and which families are receiving that aid. Best practice is to have your enrollment, financial aid, and billing systems fully integrated, with the billing software acting as an accounts receivable subsidiary ledger to your general ledger. That connectivity means everyone is looking at the same data in real time without conflicting reports.