2009 Performance Accountability Report Vol. 2 - Maryland Higher ...

last year. Specific operational improvements and new efficiencies due to Colleague included:
systematic communications to students regarding their financial aid applications and awards;
automatic packaging of awards for students whose applications were complete; electronic
processing for student loans; ability to view awards online; and improved processes for payment
of financial aid to student accounts.
The office also took steps in fiscal year 2009 to improve its client services. Student surveys have
consistently indentified personal finances as the main hindrance to college enrollment and
retention. In 2009 the Financial Aid Office made a concerted effort to mitigate this problem by
increasing the number of its outreach efforts and by more deliberately promoting current student
access to financial aid earlier than usual. Specific off-campus activities have included student
financial aid consultations at ten different venues (seven county high schools) involving over 500
advisees. To intensify its work among current students, the office inaugurated its Financial Aid
Month program last February. The program centered on the completion of 2009-2010 Free
Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by distributing applications in the college
cafeteria during the lunch hours and advertizing the application with a campus poster campaign
reminding students to apply. The month culminated with an open house in the Financial Aid
Office with a raffle of an IPOD Nano to students who completed their 2009-2010 FAFSA by
March 1.
The office’s success can be measured by the financial aid award trends. Comparing financial aid
recipients in 2008 and 2009, there were notable increases in the number of Federal Pell Grants
(23%), and Federal Stafford Loan awards (16%). To promote access to federal loans, forms were
included in students’ financial aid packages, if they indicated an interest in a loan on their
FAFSA. Better information provided to students may have made them more aware of how much
they were eligible to borrow (e.g., average loans grew 100% between 2008 and 2009).
Workforce Development and Continuing Education
In 2009, the college’s efforts to promote workforce development in the county focused on
strengthening its alliance with the new National Harbor Resort and Conference Center, already
one of the county’s top employers. It obtained from the Center’s Peterson Companies group a
gift of $5 million to help local minority-owned firms over the next five years to grow their
businesses. Under the terms of the gift, the college will establish a new Center for Minority
Business Development that will provide coursework and business consulting services. The
cornerstone program will be a Local Minority Business Enterprise (LMBE) Accelerator program
that will provide intensive business assessment, training and consulting support in order to equip
minority firms for potential contracts at National Harbor. In a related development, in 2007
Gaylord Entertainment and the federal U.S. Department of Labor awarded a 3.2 M grant to the
college. The grant was implemented this year to seed a new Hospitality Services Management
degree program.
The college’s Workforce Development and Continuing Education division also had its own
notable achievements in 2009. For example, courses offered within WDCE’s Culinary Arts and
Hospitality Services Management program topped 300 student registrants. Another 2009 success
was the achievement of capacity operation at the college’s only continuing education extension
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