While compliance risk assessment is considered to be standard procedure for financial institutions, it has not been commonplace in the Financial Aid Offices at colleges and university. College and university administration expect their financial aid office to know where their compliance risks are and to devote resources to those areas that present the greatest risk to the institution.
That is a daunting task to be sure, especially since most enrollment and financial aid administrators are experts at the operational side of Financial Aid but lack the expertise to perform an enterprise-wide compliance risk assessment.
Third Coast Higher Education effectively evaluates the risk of violating federal and/or state laws and regulations and then provides the solutions to adequately mitigate that risk through well-designed and executed controls. Additionally, through our assessment, we are able to identify places within your business process that have opportunities for system automation and enhancements as well as improvements to business processes that are not currently following best practice approach.
Our approach seeks to achieve buy-in within the institution (and “because the regulations say so” usually won’t do it) to make the financial aid business process easier and ultimately more effective. An approach that aspires to make everyone’s lives easier by mitigating compliance risk and improving service, allowing staff to focus their time and effort on what is deemed important to the office.