Assistant Director for Financial Aid
About SCHEV
The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) is the coordinating body for the nation’s preeminent system of postsecondary education. Among its primary responsibilities are: the development of a statewide strategic plan for higher education; the facilitation of collaboration among postsecondary institutions that enhances academic quality and operational efficiency; and the development of system-level recommendations on budgetary and policy matters.
The Council and its staff play multiple, statutory roles in financial, budgetary and policy matters related to Virginia higher education, including: (i) developing policies, formulae and guidelines for the fair and equitable distribution and use of public funds among the public institutions of higher education; (ii) providing periodic updates of base-adequacy funding guidelines; and (iii) calculating each public institution's basic operations and instruction funding need for each year of each biennium and making that calculation available to the Governor, the General Assembly and the public colleges and universities. To fulfill these duties and expectations, SCHEV requires expertise in not only finance, accounting, budgeting and policymaking, but also in the management of higher-education-related financial information and data.
SCHEV aspires to be a great place to work. It is an environment of public servants committed to developing an educationally and economically sound, vigorous, progressive and coordinated system of higher education in Virginia. We value honesty, quality, diversity, inclusion, growth-orientation, personal well-being, equity, transparency and accountability. And we seek team players that will advance these values through their work and engagement.
Assistant Director for Financial Aid
About the Position
This position provides supervision and oversight over the agency’s financial aid section. This position will supervise the current staff of four full-time positions and will report directly to the Director of Finance Policy & Innovation. This position provides an opportunity to work alongside FP&I’s professional staff in a collegial atmosphere. In addition to providing expertise and supervision of the financial aid section, this position will have ample opportunity to work in overall higher education data and policy. SCHEV’s office is located in downtown Richmond, VA; limited teleworking is possible but not guaranteed.
Duties and Responsibilities
• Supervise current staff of four full-time financial aid positions.
• Provide expertise and insight for financial aid policy specifically and contribute to higher education finance policy topics overall.
• Develop and enforce financial aid regulations consistent with the Code of Virginia, the annual Act of Appropriation, and other official direction from state policy makers.
• Assess and implement efficient strategies to maximize affordability and access for all students.
• Prepare periodic short-form narratives on pressing higher education topics for SCHEV’s Insights blog, Council meetings and other venues.
• Prepare research and policy analyses to be included in ad hoc reports and presentations to stakeholders.
• Support fiscal and operational planning and performance at the state and campus/institutional levels, including six-year plans, a biennial planning process for institutions and state government, and the institutional performance standards.
• Other duties as assigned that support SCHEV’s efforts in fulfilling the goals and strategies of the statewide plan for higher education.
Occasional intraday travel will be required. Periodic overnight travel.
Minimum Qualifications
• Extensive experience and knowledge of state and federal financial aid programs and administration.
• Broad familiarity with higher education topics including enrollment, finance, affordability, academic programs and workforce alignment.
• Considerable experience demonstrating the ability to collaborate with, lead, coach, and provide personnel guidance/management to professional staff.
• Experience demonstrating analytical skills, with the ability to recognize correlations
between data to conduct temporal and peer comparisons and to develop hypotheses on patterns identified.
• Experience using spreadsheets and/or database management applications is required.
• Experience conducting research and developing/drafting summaries and recommendations based on that research.
• Experience communicating verbally with demonstrated ability to provide effective presentations and training sessions.
• Experience providing customer service and collaborating with internal and external
stakeholders.
• Experience working independently in a deadline driven and politically sensitive work environment.
Additional Considerations
• Experience working with Microsoft Office suite required and experience and knowledge of cloud services (SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams) and AI machine learning tools also desired.
• Experience in the field of higher education finance is desired.
• Possession of a valid driver’s license and/or of access to reliable transportation for travel to job-related activities.
