Scherry George, Associate Registrar for Student Financial Services, has been stumped as to the reason why students do not come to our loan disbursement activity prior to the start of classes. The advantage to the student is two-fold. First, the student has their loan/grant proceeds deposited faster in their account for their use and the student who took advantage of the early disbursement is not standing in line to pick up their funding during scheduled classes.

Student Financial Services has even hired 5 - 6 additional staff to ensure the students' loans are processed in as timely a fashion as possible for the past four disbursement periods, to no avail. Although SFS would advertise 500 students a day, they often did not even reach the 300 mark and it was becoming increasingly frustrating, especially hiring additional workers and not having students take advantage of the early disbursement schedule.

In attempting to rectify this situation and to generate more student interest in the loan disbursement activity, the idea to offer an incentive was born.

The prize package idea came to fruition and with the support of the CCSAI, SFS offered a $100 gift certificate and a prize package daily to one lucky winner drawn from the students who arrived on the first four days of loan disbursement activity.

To say this incentive was successful is an understatement. SFS experienced 80% higher student participation in Winter 2010 than in the same four days in Winter 2009.

SFS will continue to develop ideas that will ensure as many students as possible take advantage of early loan disbursement.