Most of the functions that your staff and faculty perform ultimately supports your school’s mission to teach students the skills that will help them achieve their future hopes and dreams.
But one responsibility that your school may be handling—private student account servicing—probably doesn’t quite fit your mission. Servicing entails:
- Complying with state and federal regulations
- Managing, sending, and storing communications
- Collecting and applying payments on student accounts
- Keeping track of interest and principal
- Answering questions through customer support
Essentially, account servicing is providing the administrative support of the account. It’s a big responsibility and most often outside the scope of an institution’s experience. If your career school has taken on servicing your student accounts, your staff may be experiencing pain points and frustration. If that’s the case, you may find that outsourced account servicing is a better option for your school. Ask yourself these questions, and the answers can help you understand why.
Answers to 4 Top Private Student Account Servicing Questions
1. Do you have the infrastructure in place to support the accounts?
This may sound like a simple question, but the answer is quite complex. That’s because the infrastructure includes:
- All written and emailed communications, including invoices and notices
- Technology, processes, and compliant documentation to set up accounts
- Processes to apply payments and make calculations
- The reporting and analyzing of cash flow
- Web portal and mobile app to support online account access, information, and activity
These infrastructure requirements can present many challenges to any school handling its own servicing. After all, account servicing isn’t run like a school. Logically, your school wouldn’t have access to these financial service types of processes or setups. If you can’t answer YES to any of these infrastructure requirements, then it’s a good chance your students and graduates will have a dissatisfying experience.
2. Is servicing taking your staff away from doing their jobs?
Your staff probably wasn’t hired because of their servicing prowess. If they’re being asked to handle it, it may be like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Employee turnover could accelerate if they become dissatisfied with what they’re being asked to do, especially if it’s in addition to their regular duties or if they worry about making mistakes. If you answered YES to this question, account servicing might not be the best job function or addition to staff roles.
3. Are you on top of state and federal regulations?
Private student account servicing is highly regulated—and those regulations change frequently. If your school is handling its own servicing, you may not be aware of all that the regulations entail, which could leave you open to fines and mistakes. A qualified servicer will be on top of all changes and ensure that regulations are followed without you having to worry about them.
4. Do you have customer service?
Students and families will have questions or issues, and they’ll want to talk to someone to get answers. So it’s a no-brainer that it’s better to have experts answer the questions rather than someone who isn’t as confident, comfortable, or knowledgeable.
What a Third-Party Account Servicing Company Can Do for Your School
At Paramount Capital Group, we can help eliminate the frustration and mistakes you and your staff may be experiencing if handling your own servicing. And we can also help reduce your overhead and expenses while maximizing your cash flow. It’s a win-win on all sides.
As part of our servicing, we provide:
- Compliance with state, federal, and local account servicing regulations
- Clear and informative communication with your students regarding their financial obligation
- Convenient and safe methods for making payments
- Accurate payment allocation and posting
- Relief from information requests and complaint management
- Comprehensive loan records
- Default aversion and options for delinquent borrowers
- Third-party debt collection for charged off debt, and much more!
It truly puts your servicing dilemmas out of sight and out of mind. As our client Jill with CDS Training School shares, “Paramount has been our servicing partner since 2013. Having a consistent monthly cash flow provides the stability I need to confidently manage my school. My accounts are performing well, so I spend less time worrying about performance and more time focusing on bringing in more students and improving my programs. To any school who offers financing, I highly recommend a partnership with Paramount.”
Talk to Paramount Capital Group About Account Servicing
Because we’ve partnered with schools for more than 25 years for both financing and servicing, we are in a unique position to serve you differently than what you’d find with other servicers. When you partner with us, you can trust that we’ll be as careful with your money as we are with our own money.
Contact us today so that we can explain the benefits of partnering with us for your servicing. A member of our partner development team will be in touch.
You’re under no obligation. In fact, it may be the most important conversation you have this year. Not only may it free up your staff to do more of what they do best, but you could also increase cash flow, enhance the school’s stability, and expand its focus on helping students reach their dreams. We look forward to discussing soon how we can help you.