By Cathleen Bellomo, Director of Financial Aid at Wells College and NYSFAAA president 

Many of you look at me and see the third woman president of NYSFAAA. But as I look around the room, I know that another 10 years will not pass before another woman stands before you. What is more amazing to me is that I am only the third director of financial aid Wells College has ever had.

The first and second directors, I am pleased to say, are here with me tonight: Rusty Hopkins and Barbara Post. For those of you who do not know, Rusty was a charter member of NYSFAAA. I remember asking her about that initial meeting on November 14, 1968 in, ironically, Syracuse, New York. I could only envision the energy among those 97 financial aid professionals who represented all parts of the state and all types of institutions as they adopted a constitution and elected officers.

Because of Rusty and Barb and their involvement in NYSFAAA, I did not learn the skills of my profession in the vacuum of my institution. I learned the love for financial aid and its purpose through the eyes of every member of NYSFAAA who attended the Novice Training Workshop at Wells College. My contact with colleagues from across the state, upstate and downstate, private, public or proprietary, enabled me to see beyond the challenges of one small, private institution for women. Instead, I learned to appreciate and understand the myriad conflicts and issues facing all types of institutions in New York State. Yes, I have been very lucky that Wells College and NYSFAAA have had a link over time and that my institution has allowed me to become an active member of a professional organization whose main mission is to help educate our youth to insure our future.

Rusty and Barb, you would be amazed at the changes the 90s have brought. It has truly been the "age of delivery." Students do not need to wait eight to 10 weeks to receive their student loan funds. And the days of filling in those white bubbles on Pell Payment Documents with your #2 pencils are over. We have streamlined our systems and made application and disbursement of financial aid easier and quicker. But I believe that with all change, something is sacrificed.

The days of all of us attending the College Board meetings to discuss changes with the Financial Aid Form do not occur any longer. We no longer talk about needs analysis but instead talk about computer systems. We no longer talk about "ability to pay." Instead we talk about "willingness to pay." We no longer talk about "access and choice." We now talk solely of "access." We no longer talk about "family contribution." We speak about "eligibility index." Merit scholarships are not awarded to those most needy of students who achieved academic success. They are used to buy the best and the brightest for our institutions. And if you listen to our executive council representatives talk about attendance at regional meetings, it appears that often we are no longer even talking to each other.

We did not cause these changes. We were swept up in the problems facing our institutions in the 90s. The decrease in the number of college-age students made the competition for enrollment goals our main priority on most campuses. The lack of increased federal and state financial aid funds resulted in our institutions developing more complex ways of packaging. Our computer systems changed before we could master the one being sent out of our office. And many of us suffered decreases in staff that made volunteering in NYSFAAA harder than ever before.

I see light in this new decade. Researchers tell us there will be an increase in traditional-age college students. Higher education enrollment is projected to increase by 12% from 1996 to 2008. We have experienced the largest T.A.P. increase in years. Our delivery systems still have their problems, but we are more comfortable with solving them than ever before. So where does this leave us? It does not mean we will go back to the "old ways." But we will need to find new ways of working in this visual, fast-paced, technological world.

NYSFAAA will survive the 21st century, and I believe it will renew itself with the same energy and passion that our colleagues experienced in 1968 when they founded our organization. How will we do it? What does the future hold? Here is my "Lettermen's top 10" for NYSFAAA in the next decade:

10. Enrollment management is here to say. Whether you report to an enrollment manager or are part of a team on your campus, all of us will agree that the data gathering and assessment we have done in the past few years will be in even more demand. Computers and mainframe systems have enabled us to gather more data and to target those students who would best fit our institutions. This is better than "sex" to most admission directors. If we are to be seen as major players on our campuses, we will need these skills.

9. Financial aid professionals from non-traditional schools have been members of NYSFAAA for years. These schools serve a purpose in our society and cannot be forgotten. They have unique issues and concerns, and we as an organization need to hear our colleagues and be there for them. I am pleased to say this year Evelyn Destio, chairperson of the Statewide Non-traditional Concerns Committee, conducted a training session downstate, and I hope to see more of these workshops in the future.

8. Our knowledge of tax credits, education IRAs, college savings plans, outside scholarship sources, and alternative loans will need to be stronger. If anyone read the emails this past week on NYSFAAA-L concerning alternative loans, you know this to be true. We cannot sit back and let the federal and state governments alone determine how tax credits and college savings plans will effect a student's financial aid eligibility. And even more important, we need to remind our lawmakers that many of these programs do not assist our neediest populations. I have a friend who is a stockbroker at E.G. Edwards. She is always asking me about educational IRAs and college savings plans. Now she is trying to find loopholes in the system that will save her clients money. They give seminars on these plans. One day I said to her, "You know these programs do not help our low-income students." Her response to me was: "Cathy, you are in the only business today whose sole purpose is to help the neediest of students." If this is true, we have a responsibility today and tomorrow to speak out for the rights of these students.

7. We will not be able to decrease our pressure for increased funding at the federal and state level. Since there will be an increase in college-bound students, the need for financial aid funds will grow as well. Tom and Bill did a wonderful job in educating our lawmakers in Albany, and I want to believe they had a strong impact on the increase in T.A.P. funds we had this year. We will need to make sure these funds exist for our next entering class as well. During the past few years, we have relied on other colleagues and NASFAA to respond to NPRMS and to send letters to our lawmakers in Albany and Washington. Well, those colleagues you believed would respond have been relying on you to respond. We have become politically negligent as a profession. We have used the excuse that our voice does not mean as much as parents or students. You are probably correct in that statement, and we need to find ways to educate our students and parents about the political process. However, if they are not writing and we are not writing, then no one is writing. I do not believe that is to our advantage. And I strongly believe that one of the major roles of your executive council representatives is to assist the Government Relations Committee. This year we will be having our February meeting in Albany. With the assistance of Cindy Kohlman and Beth Post and their Government Relations Committee, we will be meeting with lawmakers at that time.

6. The "rising cost of higher education" will remain an issue, as my good friend Irv Bodosky just reminded me. Tuition increases will always generate an uproar among students, parents, and lawmakers. We can only guess what college will cost 10 years from now. We can only imagine what our students' total debt will be upon graduation. I believe amidst this argument, colleges will come under scrutiny concerning academic progress requirements, retention rates, and graduation rates. I fear that increased funding might come with a price tag to students in terms of their academic progress requirements. We could find ourselves having to compile data we have not been responsible for in the past - one more thing to add to our already overfilled plates.

5. Students and parents will demand services. And they want answers to be quick, easy, and visual. I am going to share with you a story about a "blooper" that I made this past spring. I am very old-school, so it has taken me a little longer to embrace the new technology. But I finally decided to allow my students the option of entrance loan counseling online. I was so proud of myself as I devised the written instructions to students. We waited in anticipation for the confirmations to come rolling in through our email. We waited. They did not arrive. I was stunned! Where did I fail? So in our opening meeting with new students I asked, "How many of you read the materials concerning online entrance loan counseling?" Very few raised their hands. I then asked, "How many of you had access to the Internet in June?" Nearly everyone raised their hands. Finally, one woman in the back of the room said, "My parents take all the forms that have to do with financial aid. I don't see them." How stupid of me! In my excitement to initiate change, I forgot two vital rules: parents are choosing our lenders for our traditional-age students, and they do not read either! As an organization, we produce a large body of written materials to educate parents, students, and lawmakers. In this next decade, we are going to have to ask ourselves, "How useful are these materials in today's world?" Our homepage will become more and more important in the years to come. We most likely will need more Vinces to accomplish our goals.

4. We will always provide training. Training is the cornerstone of our organization. We do it better than any organization I know. And as it gets harder and harder for us to find time away from our offices, we will need to examine how and what vehicle of communication will be used in the future to accomplish state-wide training. Will NYSFAAA develop, as EASFAA and NASFAA has, a group of trainers that travel around the state to bring training to your back door? Will we see more teleconferences? I do believe that as financial aid laws move beyond our offices and into other areas of our campuses, we will be providing training not to only our own colleagues but to admissions personnel, business officers, registrars, and academic deans in the next decade. I hope that in your regional meetings this fall you talk about the training you will want to have this year and give any suggestions to Mike Pede. As officers we are here to serve you, but please let us know how we can best serve you.

3. NYSFAAA will not be able to function in a vacuum in the decades ahead. We will need to work with existing organizations to accomplish our goals. There are 2,700 national, regional, and state educational organizations in our country. Partnerships will be made with some of these to better meet the needs of our organization. The pooling of resources, not just funds but people, will be the wave of the future. Can SUNYFAP and NYSFAAA provide joint training sessions? We are all in the business of financial aid. Our existing statewide committees will need to examine their membership. Is it time to make the president of the NYS Guidance Counselors Association a standing member of our statewide Guidance Counselor Workshop Committee? And what about CAAN? Is it time we ask some of our scholarship winners to serve on our state-wide committees to learn from students themselves on how to best educate them about the changes in the financial aid process? I believe it is. And our opportunities in this area are endless, not just for training and outreach, but for advocacy as well. Becoming active in the state with our educational community is the best public relations we have for our organization. We should remember the old saying, "United we stand, divided we fall."

2. We live in a multicultural world. Studies predict that the growth in college age students will come mainly from our minority populations. Is this a group NYSFAAA is reaching already? If not, how do we reach this population? I do not believe our colleges are ready to target this population. And I do not believe we are either. That is why I have formed a new committee and have asked Tony Thompson and Sherwood Johnson to chair the statewide Diversity and Outreach Committee. They will be reviewing different ways that NYSFAAA can reach out to those students from schools that do not receive your traditional financial aid nights. They will also be seeking to build partnerships with those already existing organizations whose purpose is to provide outreach activities to these students. Early awareness of college financial aid opportunities is crucial to this population's success, and we must do all we can to assure that information reaches these students.

1. The heart of NYSFAAA has always been its regions. As mentioned earlier, there is a growing concern about the attendance at regional meetings, not only from the financial aid community, but from our lender community as well. I have even been told that NYSFAAA is being viewed as a "social organization." How can an organization that trained 1,208 guidance counselors and conducted a record 572 financial aid information sessions in 1999 be called a social organization? These workshops and our own state-wide training efforts are not being done by executive council people only, or even by the members that do attend regional meetings, but by most of the people in this room. Volunteers are found not just at regional meetings but through phone calls and emails through friends. However, it was through regional meetings that the executive council was informed of its members' wishes and concerns for the year. Without strong regional participation, decisions for the organization are being made by a few and not by the majority. Mentoring activities are strongest at the regional level. How can these activities occur while attendance is low? Executive Council will be asking all regional chairpersons to attend our December meeting. We would like to discuss this issue and determine if there is anyway that we can assist our regions with increasing their attendance and volunteerism. In the statewide budget, there is funding set aside for regional training and last year not all these funds were used. The strength of our organization lies with its regions. We cannot falter here if we are to be successful in meeting the challenges confronting us in the next decade.

I will leave you with a quote from the movie "Saving Private Ryan." For those of you who did not see the movie, Tom Hanks and a few soldiers are forced to travel across a war-torn Europe in search of Private Ryan. All they really want to do is to go home, understandably. A few die on the way. Some get injured. In simple words, it was not as an easy task. But they did the right thing: they found Private Ryan. And Tom Hank's last words to Private Ryan were, "Earn it." Two simple words: "Earn It." Everything NYSFAAA has been, is, and will be is the result of hard work and the dedication of its members. Thank you.

Delivered in Syracuse, New York, October 2000