Student Financial Aid Overhaul Underway at PCC with New Director

Pasadena City College’s new financial director is planning to implement a string of changes in the process by which students apply for financial aid to help them avoid lengthy waiting periods in the disbursement of the funds.

Among the changes that new PCC’s Financial Aid Office Director Manuel Cerda has in mind is encouraging students to embrace technology and use it as they track the status of their financial aid requests.

“I’m heavy on the customer service part so one of my goals here is to change that around, to be able to use modern technology like portal information, communication via email and eventually use text communication to provide more frequent up to date statuses because the technology is there we just need to use it and embrace it,” Cerda told the PCC Courier, the College’s weekly student publication.

Cerda, hired in the fall of 2015, plans to discourage students from taking out student loans at the community college level, the PCC student weekly reports. He also has plans to implement changes to that process to reduce the wait times for experienced borrowers and process their applications faster.

“Our goal here is to be able to really discourage the use of student loans because of the Department of Education limitations and to educate students to save their loan eligibility for a four-year or professional degree,” Cerda said. “As for the delay of the loans, one of the things is we make it a requirement for first time borrowers to wait 30 days, but there is a method where I’m going to be able to expedite that process for existing borrowers who are clear on their path to their goals.”

With the deadline to begin the financial aid applications for the fall 2016 term approaching, students can look forward to Cerda’s new measures to help them through the process, among them a shift to what he calls “push targeted communication.”

“If it’s been a certain period of time, we send you an email, what I call a nudge,” Cerda explained to the PCC Courier. “If you’ve been stalled in there for two weeks, then you know you need to go check in and see what’s going on. Even no news is news, and if you’re not moving forward then you need to take action.”

Cerda also confirmed PCC is in the process of finding a debit card similar to what other colleges use as a disbursement option for students. Using such a card could help reduce expenses that are invested in generating paper checks, mailing them to students and paying people to stuff them in envelopes, he said.

Counting the time it takes for providers to come to campus and present their proposals, such an option could be in use in about a year once the college decides to pursue it.

In any case, PCC plans to involve students more in the decision-making process, so that whatever substantial changes can be done in the process would help them concentrate on their studies and in graduating.