One Stop Student Services

The 2023-2024 academic year has kicked off with its usual excitement and fervor for students wanting to work with One Stop. We are immensely grateful to the staff who worked tirelessly throughout this time. The One Stop team headed into "Fall Start" almost fully staffed and completely trained. This is the first time in quite a number of years! One Stop is extremely thankful for all the support from our partner offices across ASR. Thank you!

University Veterans Services

• Handling the certification of Veteran Education Benefits for over 600 veteran and military-connected students. 
• Navigating a new certification platform and changes to VA processing procedures.
• Planning our annual Veterans Appreciation Event on November 9, 2023. 
• Attending the Big Ten Academic Alliance Military and Veteran Conference at the University of Iowa. 

Financial Wellness Committee

• Hosting workshops and attending campus events, including a workshop hosted with the Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence during Welcome Week. 
• Managing an increase in requests for 1:1 financial wellness appointments because the pandemic pause on federal loan repayments is ending, and most borrowers are set to resume repayment this month.

Graduate Student Services and Progress

• Meeting with cohorts of newly hired Graduate Program Coordinators to help them learn about important resources for their work, system access, and GPAS basics. 

Chatbot

• Launched the One Stop Student Services chatbot officially on October 2, 2023, which replaces One Stop’s live agent chat with conversational AI technology provided by Ivy.ai. This new service allows One Stop to shift resources to other communication methods where they are better suited to answer student-specific questions.

Student Account Assistance

• Kicked off Third-Party Billing policy changes to better align with the policies and processes of our peers from the Big Ten and AAU. 
• Moved the late payment policy for sponsors from 90 days to 45 days, which will notify students earlier in the process if there are issues with a sponsored payment, and allow them additional time to secure alternative funding if necessary before the term ends.
• Implemented an authorization acceptance policy with a deadline of the last day of the term. This will alleviate issues with repackaging financial aid and issuing refunds and the potential for prior year adjustments to 1098-T forms. 

Billing dates

• Shifted the billing due dates to allow students and families more time to arrange their finances. The turnaround time proves to be quite short in the Fall term for students requesting funds from their college savings plans (i.e., 529 plans), applying for private loans, arranging funds to come from international banks due to holidays, etc. 

Homecoming

• Happy Homecoming! A big thank you to all that supported One Stop and ASR’s participation in the homecoming parade. It’s a cherished tradition! GO GOPHERS!