Heather Aksamit is a Senior Consultant for College Aid Services. Heather recently joined the College Aid Services team, bringing more than 10 years of experience working in higher education systems. Her expertise in systems allows her to provide remote staffing as a Financial Aid Business Analyst, assisting with new aid year setup, general systems support, and documentation and improvement of processes.
Heather enjoys working on new system implementations and looking for ways to improve processes and create systematic solutions to ease work for the financial aid counselors. The moments when she can reduce stress for co-workers and streamline business processes are some of her most rewarding achievements working in financial aid. “Often a well-functioning systems area in the financial aid office, can free up the counselors to counsel the students, spending more time one-on-one helping students understand the financial aid process and alleviating financial stress to continue their college journey.”
Heather has spent recent years outside of higher education and is excited to get back into financial aid. When asked what advice she would give to a new person starting in financial aid, she responded “I think being open to learning is so critical to serving students well while working in Financial Aid. Ask questions and research the difficult situations – you will learn so much while doing the research and have such a feeling of accomplishment when you are able to help those students with tricky situations. Keeping those students foremost in your mind can make all the challenges worth it.”
Heather earned her Bachelor of Science from Kent University.
If you are interested in joining the College Aid Services team, please fill out our questionnaire here. To learn more about how College Aid Services can help your institution, contact us at info@collegeaidservices.net or by phone toll-free at 833-GETCAS1 (833-438-2271).