Financial Aid Business Analyst & State Aid Coordinator

California State University - Hayward, CA

Full-time - Entry Level

Remote - Hayward, CA

Educational Services

About the position

The Financial Aid Business Analyst & State Aid Coordinator at California State University, East Bay is responsible for supporting the PeopleSoft Financial Aid Module, enhancing productivity through improved automated practices, and ensuring accurate system functionality. This role involves technical support for business operations, administration of state grants, and serving as the subject matter expert in State Aid. The position requires ongoing assessment of complex issues and collaboration with various stakeholders to ensure compliance and effective communication regarding financial aid processes.

Responsibilities

• Utilize the PeopleSoft System to generate export files for the Federal Pell Grant and Federal Direct Loan programs.
• Import Federal ISIR Data, Federal Pell Grant, and Federal Direct Loan files into the PeopleSoft System on a daily basis.
• Import Federal ISIR Data into the Campuslogic platform.
• Serve as backup support for Cal ISIR loading into both the PeopleSoft and Campuslogic system.
• Send and receive files to/from the US Department of Education's Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) system and the California Student Aid Commission's (CSAC) Webgrants.
• Resolve COD origination and disbursement errors for the Federal Pell Grant and Direct Loan programs.
• Manage students' to-do list tasks within the Campuslogic platform, which includes mass assigning documents to student financial aid records.
• Collaborate with Information Technology Staff to monitor documents imports from the Campuslogic platform into the OnBase document imaging system.
• Upload copies of the federal and Cal Grant record files data to the Chancellor's Office via SSH Secure File Transfer.
• Help the Assistant Director of Financial Aid Operations to set funding budget limits within the PeopleSoft system.
• Assist in accurately configuring and maintaining run controls for Financial Aid manual processes and batch automated jobs for the weekly production schedule.
• Participate in formulating and defining functional and technical project requirements, scope, and objectives.
• Make system recommendations, participate in setting system priorities, and project planning.
• Help create user manuals and train users on the usage of applications.
• Troubleshoot and respond to issues reported by internal staff.
• Partner with the Assistant Director of Financial Aid Operations to analyze future software patches and vendor/CSU modifications for impacts on the installed system.
• Collaborate with Associate Director of Financial Aid to ensure all PeopleSoft processes, queries, and programs run on schedule, troubleshoot issues, and support workflows.
• Ensure ongoing configuration maintenance of the Financial Aid PeopleSoft module.
• Participate in conference calls with CSU user groups and attend meetings, as needed.
• Act as the primary tester for any new modifications or reports to the Financial Aid Module.
• Attend PeopleSoft trainings and seek out system support resources.
• Help ensure all processes and procedures related to PeopleSoft are well documented.
• Serve as liaison to the PeopleSoft project group for upgrades and other ongoing activities.
• Generate and maintain department communication letter templates for the 3 C's Module.
• Help develop and maintain reports required for daily financial aid processing or ad-hoc reporting needs of the department.
• Run processes to repackage financial aid awards to reflect student enrollment at the time of disbursement.
• Help develop and monitor job schedules utilized to process financial aid disbursements on a bi-weekly basis.
• Coordinate with the Student Financials Office to maintain workflows created to identify financial aid refunds that require review before disbursement to the student.
• Analyze data integrity, as well as, perform reconciliation of disbursement activity against federal and state funds.
• Run a monthly process to update earned Federal Work-Study totals within PeopleSoft.
• Run routine processes in PeopleSoft (e.g. Satisfactory Academic Progress and communication batches).
• Develop and maintain automated packaging and repackaging plans.
• Ensure system and student record alignment between Campuslogic and PeopleSoft utilizing the 3 C's Engine.
• Assist with year-end close out activities which involve running year-end reports.
• Help develop reports and queries, and maintenance of dashboards for functional staff.
• Perform annual FADB reporting.
• Help develop queries and reporting tools to support FISAP data reporting.
• Maintain monthly reconciliation queries for the Federal Pell and Federal Direct Loan programs using the monthly SAS report.
• Provide data analytics for annual IPEDs reporting.
• Prepare financial data reports and/or analysis for internal department constituents.
• Research, analyze, and document business requirements for projects.
• Identify, formulate, and define new and ongoing project requirements.
• Collaborate with third party vendors with deploying new technologies.
• Responsible for the development and utilization of data analytics for ongoing assessment of department performance.
• Assist with processing and resolution of data discrepancies.
• Support staff with troubleshooting financial aid functional areas.
• Run standard weekly reports for functional staff.
• Work collaboratively with alt units within Financial Aid, the Student Fiscal Services Office, the Enrollment Management leadership team and the California Student Aid Commission and be the subject matter expert in State Aid.
• Administer the delivery of state aid funds to students.
• Oversee the State Aid portfolio and be the primary point of contact in State Aid administration.
• Award, Middle Class Scholarship, and other state grant programs as available and communicate eligibility and requirements to student recipients.
• Input data as required for eligibility determination for CA Chaffee Grant Program and communicates eligibility and requirements to recipients.
• Administer in Grant AB840 E2 Verification Audit Process and contacts students to encourage timely submission of necessary documentation.
• Work with Colleges and Departments to administer Golden State and Work Study programs administered by CSAC to ensure proper counseling and student services.
• Interact with various members of campus including Admissions, Records, Student Financials and Information Technology.
• Attend conferences and trainings held by HEUG/Alliance (Oracle), CSAC, Federal Student Aid (FSA), National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) and California Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (CASFAA); and other job related organizations.

Requirements

• A Bachelor's degree and/or equivalent training and administrative work experience involving study, analysis, and/or evaluation leading to the development or improvement of administrative policies, procedures, practices, or programs.
• Requires general knowledge and skills in the applicable administrative and/or program field with a foundational knowledge of public administration principles, practices, and methods.
• PeopleSoft experience
• Excellent organization skills
• Ability to work independently, make judgment, decisions and commitments within a team environment
• Excellent facilitation skills
• Ability to influence and gain support of a decision while collaborating with a decentralized customer base
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Excellent presentation skills
• Strong analytical skills and ability to understand and troubleshoot recruiting and admissions.

Benefits

• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Retirement (CalPERS)
• 401k
• 457
• 403(b)
• Dependent and health care reimbursement accounts
• Life insurance
• Vacation and sick leave
• 14 paid holidays
• One personal holiday
• Tuition fee waiver