SUNY Smart Track
Project Description-Student Engagement Component
Background
The SUNY Smart Track Campaign was developed to combat debt and student loan
default throughout New York and set a model for the nation. The initiative will
promote transparency as it relates to college costs and financial aid, and the
amount of federal loan debt accumulated by SUNY students. The Student Loan
Service Center (SLSC), currently used exclusively by SUNY’s state-operated
campuses, will be expanded to serve all SUNY campuses and provide additional
services to support Smart Track. Vendor support will be needed to enhance or
develop the SLSC loan servicing platform that will be used to generate new
student engagement communications to SUNY federal student loan borrowers.
Smart Track services for students and campuses will include new tools to help
educate students from the earliest stage of borrowing and will include financial
management-financial literacy resources. Smart Track will engage those students
at the highest risk of default throughout their time on campus and beyond.
Engaging and working with all student loan borrowers to help them complete
their degree and obtain a job after graduation will better prepare them to repay
their loans and avoid the consequences of student loan default. Lowering system-
wide cohort default rates will also allow SUNY campuses to avoid federal
sanctions associated with high default rates.
Department of Education-SUNY Collaboration
During 2012 SUNY entered into discussions with the Department of Education
(ED) and subsequently agreed to adopt the principles of the ED-developed
Shopping Sheet-a standardized initiative to make college costs and financing
transparent to consumers. The result was the development of the SUNY Award
Letter which will be implemented during the 2013-2014 academic year.
SUNY also continued to meet with ED to discuss system-wide strategies that
would address the expected rise in campus default rates. According to federal
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data projections, the recent change from a two-year cohort default window to a
larger three-year window would result in an increased number of defaulters-
leading to a national spike in student loan default rates for all college sectors. As a
result of these discussions, SUNY developed a Default Prevention Task Force and
began collaborative discussions regarding strategies to address student success
and default prevention.
Initial Task Force meetings were held at SUNY Administration with
representatives from the Department of Education and statewide campuses.
Invitations were initially extended to SUNY Community College colleagues and
campus representatives from the following offices: Financial Aid, Admissions-
Enrollment Management, Academic Affairs, Registrar, and Business Office. SUNY
Administration established an internal project team that included representatives
from the SUNY Office of Student Financial Aid, Office of Community Colleges and
the Office of the Provost-including Academic Affairs and Enrollment
Management.
SUNY Stakeholders
Ongoing discussions with the Department of Education highlighted the
importance of partnering with key campus and external stakeholders in the
development of effective student retention and default prevention strategies.
This supports a commonly acknowledged industry motto, “It’s Not Just a Financial
Aid Problem”.
SUNY’s Smart Track initiative will include collaborative strategies that are
developed by SUNY stakeholders from campus offices that will include:
Admissions-Enrollment Management, Academic Affairs-Student Services,
Financial Aid, Registrar-Business Office, Career Services, IT and other campus
offices.
SUNY will also collaborate with external stakeholders to promote the services that
are available from: the U.S. Department of Education, the Federal Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, the NYS Department of Labor- Career Zone Office,
the Department of State-Division of Consumer Protection and other external
service partners.
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Potential SUNY Stakeholder Benefits
As announced in a recent SUNY Press release, Smart Track is expected to reduce
student debt and SUNY student loan default rates. Smart track also has the
capability to provide added benefits for campus stakeholders, such as those
described below:
Admissions-Enrollment Management: SUNY’s ability to provide new student
services in the form of student engagement communications will be an effective
admissions tool and will help to better recruit and retain students.
Academic Affairs-Student Services: New student engagement communications
will reinforce available on-campus academic resources and other student services
and should increase student demand for services- leading to improved student
retention and persistence rates.
Financial Aid: Default prevention “Best Practices” will be identified during the
development of the project and will be shared across the SUNY System.
Registrar-Business Office: Since Smart Track efforts are intended to keep students
in school, it will result in added financial benefits for the campus. Title IV funds
can be maintained by the student and campus if a student doesn’t withdraw,
eliminating the need for 3" party campus collections.
Career Services: New student engagement communications will be sent to
students informing them of available on-campus career services, allowing
students to seek early guidance regarding career fields, occupations, salary
projections and corresponding academic programs.
Project Measurement
An effective Smart Track measurement process will be implemented at project
inception, and will ultimately be expanded in collaboration with campus
administrators and campus IT staff. Initial project measurement will review and
compare:
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-annual SUNY campus retention rates;
-annual Delinquency Data, the number of the early and late stage loan
delinquencies as reported on the schools NSLDS Delinquency Borrower Report
(DELQO1);
-annual Default Data, the number of Federal and Direct Loans that enter default
during the measurement year as reported on the school’s NSLDS Delinquent
Borrower Report (SCH PR1)
-annual comparison of students who withdraw during the measurement year as
reported on the school’s NSLDS School Portfolio Report (SCHPR1); and
-the effectiveness of SLSC email communications sent to enrolled and in-grace
SUNY student loan borrowers. The SLSC or SLSC vendor will have the ability to
determine if email communications are subsequently opened and whether the
student loan borrower clicked on campus resource attachments/links.
Campus IT project measurement support will not be required during the initial
phase of the project, however ongoing campus feedback will be critical to the
success of the Smart Track project. For example, Smart Track project staff will be
seeking campus feedback regarding trends associated with an expected and
increased student demand for on-campus academic support and other student
support services.
Student Engagement-Retention Model
Research continues to show that many high school graduates are academically,
financially and socially unprepared for college. To be successful, a student must
utilize the wide range of campus provided support services, which they may or
may not seek out or explore on their own. Social adaptation is another crucial
element for college success since isolation and failure to adapt is a known
predictor of withdrawal. Therefore, the Smart Track model will collaboratively
identify and deliver information regarding on-campus academic support and
other student services intrusively, by initiating contact with students and
aggressively bringing support services to them- rather than offering services
somewhat passively. As part of the Smart Track initiative, Best Campus Practices
will also be identified, shared and replicated across the system.
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Industry research and higher education organizations continue to support a more
pro-active engagement and intrusive approach to student counseling and
retention.
The Center for Community College Engagement (CCCE) acknowledges in their
national retention practices report "A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for
Community College Student Success”, that intrusive advising is a “promising
practice”.
The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), in their
”2010 The Completion Agenda-A Call to Action Report”, encourages colleges “to
strengthen communication to students via telephone calls and e-mails”.
To promote student success, the Department of Education Office of Student
Financial Aid recommends that colleges connect with students while students are
still enrolled and during their grace period.
Additional research that supports this model includes:
“It has been found that college students under-utilize academic support services
(Friendlander, 1980; Walter & Smith, 1990), especially those students who are in
most need of support (Knapp & Karabenick, 1988: Abrams and Jernigan, 1984).
At- risk students, in particular, have trouble recognizing that they are
experiencing academic difficulty and are often reluctant to seek help even if they
do not recognize their difficulty (Levin & Levin, 1991). Academic support programs
designed for underprepared students exert a statistically significant effect on their
retention and grades when they are utilized, especially if these services are
utilized by students during their freshman year (Kulik, Kulik, & Shwaib, 1983).
According to the Noel-Levitz “2011 Student Retention Practices Report”, a strong
academic support program, and programs designed for 1-year students are both
highly ranked effective practices for two-year and four-year institutions.
The 2011 National Freshman Attitudes Report, a 100-item attitudinal national
survey completed in the fall of 2010 during freshman orientation by 99,368
incoming first-year students at 321 colleges and universities nationwide, revealed
that a variety of attitudes that may compromise a student’s ability to engage with
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their coursework, suggesting the importance of engaging students via academic
intervention: Only 55% of students at two-year institutions believed they were
capable of writing a clear and organized college paper, with 65-67% responding
the same at four-year schools. Math was also reported to be troublesome (48%)
for first-generation students and non-traditional age freshman (53%).
Approximately half of incoming freshman nationally indicated that they
welcomed academic assistance in the form of writing, math and study skills, and
the percentage was even higher for students attending two-year schools and first-
generation students. Also, nearly one-third of all freshman respondents reported
substantial levels of financial anxiety that were “very distracting and
troublesome”- leading to the conclusion that incoming students lacked available
financial resources and/or financial management coping skills.
Financial Literacy Services
Smart Track includes new financial literacy-financial management services, tools
and resources for students and families. SUNY is currently seeking a vendor
partner through the state procurement process, which will provide services to all
campuses, SUNY students and families. It is anticipated that new financial literacy
services will be available by fall 2013.
Default Predictors-Risk Assessment
Until the SLSC or SLSC vendor has the capability to analyze system-wide NSLDS
data, initial Smart Track Student Engagement-Communications will be sent to all
federal student loan borrowers. As part of the Smart Track Student Engagement
project, the SLSC or SLSC vendor will retrieve NSLDS data for all campuses which
will be hosted on an expanded or new SLSC Loan Servicing Platform. Once this
process is fully implemented, SUNY will have access to system-wide loan and
student demographic data so that new student engagement communications can
begin.
Once the data analysis component of this initiative is implemented, SLSC
communications can be generated to student loan borrowers based on specific
categories of default risk. The following Department of Education and industry
recognized default characteristics may also be used in the development of SUNY’s
risk assessment model:
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-Students who fail to maintain satisfactory progress
-Students on academic probation
-Students at risk of default, such as delinquent student loan borrowers
-Students who borrow more than the campus or system average-including private
loans
-Community College students
-Students taking remedial courses-representing almost 50% of incoming
community college students, where only 64% currently return for their second
year
-Students working more than 20 hours per week
-Students who frequently change academic programs
-Students from low-income backgrounds/No Expected Family Contribution
-First generation student
-Students who fail to persist- and continually drop courses
-Late registrants
Campus Student Engagement Plan: Communications by Month/Week
A Smart Track student engagement-communications plan will be developed in
collaboration with individual campuses. Communications are not intended to
replicate existing campus communications or initiatives, but to engage students
throughout their academic career via email (and when/if approved-text
messages) to promote student success. Targeted communications will be sent to
SUNY federal student loan borrowers by the SLSC, and will focus on 3 primary
retention and default predictors:
-Academic Success: promote available academic assistance and other campus
support services
-Social Adaption: promote campus clubs, organizations and ongoing events
-Early identification of Student’s who intend to withdraw/or withdraw: engage
students and refer students to available campus services and resources-
encourage all students to continue college studies; e-engage students during
grace period and provide information regarding loan repayment options and
consequences of default.
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Note: Funding will be explored to provide campuses with early and mid-stage
delinquency resolution services, beyond the student loan borrower’s grace
period.
Initial SLSC Smart Track Communications
Initial fall semester communications for all campuses will include an Introductory,
co-branded SLSC-SUNY (Campus) communication with the heading, “Welcome to
SUNY (Campus)”. The initial communication will introduce the SLSC as a SUNY
Service Provider, and will follow with a summary of available on campus services
that the student will be encouraged to maintain for future reference.
Additional academic semester communications will be developed in collaboration
with campus administrators and will be implemented by the SLSC after campus
approval.
Revised Draft February 26, 2013
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