MIT Reports to the President 1994-95

Bursar's Office

Unlike FY94, which was a quiet year with few changes, the past year brought many changes to the Bursar's Office work and personnel.

In support of MIT's decision to become a lender in the federal Direct Loan program (as a replacement for the federal Stafford Loan program), the Bursar's Office volunteered to perform the bulk of the administrative tasks related to this new loan program. The work includes printing and mailing out promissory notes, accounting and reconciling the funds which are received from the federal government and placed into students' accounts, and communicating with students and parents and answering their questions. Much of this work resided in outside banks and loan guarantee agencies in the past, so the Bursar's Office has agreed to take on more work. We did this because we feel it will provide faster delivery of financial aid funds to students. The old Stafford process was very confusing and slow, which led to many requests for "emergency" loans in the past.

In FY95, student loans receivable totaled $54,952,822 at fiscal year end. These notes were funded by $15,440,885 of MIT loan funds established by friends and alumni of the Institute; $26,859,987 of federal funds in support of the Perkins Loan Program; $9,541,950 borrowed from the Student Loan Marketing Association; and $3,100,000 borrowed from local banks.

DEFAULT RATES

MIT's cohort default rate on Perkins/National Direct Student Loans was 1.4 percent in 1993 and 1.1 percent in 1994. MIT's default rate on Stafford/ Guaranteed Student Loans was 2.5 percent in 1993 and 2.6 percent in 1994. We are very proud of our performance over time in this area.

FINANCIAL SYSTEMS

We completed acceptance testing and internal training for the new Student Information System. The conversion required us to complete many new system tables specifying how we conduct our business, so that was a very time-consuming and meticulous process.

STUDENT SERVICES

We converted to the new Student Information System in October 1994. Because of our office's serious commitment to clearly defining the system's functionalities well beforehand, our conversion went smoothly. Due to the integrated nature of the system, some conversion problems appeared on our students' accounts. We did our best to deal with the questions and resolved the problems, and no complaint letters resulted.

Student tuition, fees and other charges totaling $241,332,291 were billed, an increase of 13% from last year. Servicing approximately 10,000 student accounts required 240,361 transactions to the student accounts receivable system. The amount collected as a percentage of the total receivable was 96 percent. Income from late payment fees was $198,889; income from finance charges was $164,554.

There were 198 active Parent Loan Plan accounts, of which 31 were new borrowers this year. A total of $1,760,180 was disbursed during the year and $1,587,915 in principal was collected. The PLP receivable at the end of the fiscal year was $1,896,551.

STAFF NOTES

Cheryl Blankenship gave a presentation entitled "Regulations That Affect Student Accounts" at the annual National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators conference. Carolyn Bunker and Sandra Chauncey served as readers of undergraduate applications for the Admissions Office. Shirley Picardi served on the SHARE Loan Advisory Board of the Consortium for Financing Higher Education. Ann Reilly gave a presentation entitled "Real World People Using Real World Systems: Training Strategies that Build Confidence and Enthusiasm" at the annual CUMREC conference.

The following changes in staff occurred in FY95:

Jeffrey Anderson left his position as Assistant to the Bursar/Student Services to be an engineering manager in New York.
Cheryl Blankenship left her position as Associate Bursar/Student Services to pursue her doctoral studies full-time at Boston University.
Annette Brown was appointed Office Assistant. She came to us from Henri Bendel.
Carolyn Bunker will be promoted from Associate Bursar/Financial Systems to Bursar on July 1, 1995.
Sandra Chauncey will be promoted from Assistant Bursar/Loan Collection to Associate Bursar/Student Services on July 1, 1995.
Jennifer Crockett left her position as Administrative Assistant to accept a promotion to Administrator of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education.
Dwayne Daughtry was appointed Administrative Assistant. He came to us from the Career Planning and Placement Office at MIT.
Lisa DiNatale was promoted from Office Assistant to Administrative Assistant.
Lynn Flury was promoted from Senior Office Assistant to Assistant to the Bursar/Loan Collection.
Suzanne Gilfoil left her position as Assistant to the Bursar/Accounting and Control to pursue her MBA degree full-time at the Sloan School.
Shirley Picardi will leave her position as Bursar to accept a promotion to Director, I/T Competency Group, reporting to the Vice President for Information Systems on July 1, 1995.
Ann Reilly will leave her position as Analyst/Programmer III to accept a promotion to Senior Business Analyst, reporting to the Manager of the Student Information System on July 1, 1995.
Deborah Riparo was promoted from Administrative Assistant to Assistant to the Bursar/Accounting and Control.
Kenneth Weekes left his position as Assistant to the Bursar/Loan Collection to transfer to Assistant to the Bursar/Student Services.
Chandra Wilds was appointed Senior Office Assistant. She came to us from the News Office at MIT.