Our Team Spotlight for the month of November is David Brod. Joining College Aid Services earlier this year, David combines his advanced data analytics skills and passion for community service as a Project Manager to ensure that our clients are able to better serve their students. His wealth of experience includes strategic initiative development to improve enrollment growth, student services oversight, and administering multi-million dollar financial aid programs. David is also an active member in the financial aid community as a mentor and has presented at numerous conferences to advocate for education policy reform, complementing his academic research background .
David holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Virginia Tech and an M.A. in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.
What do you like most about being a project manager?
I enjoy the people aspect of project management. I like that a big portion of my job involves interacting with people, learning about the situations at their institutions, their experiences, and the challenges that they face on-campus. I have always gravitated towards problem solving, so I look forward to any opportunity to help an institution to better support their students, faculty, and staff members.
What do you enjoy about working for College Aid Services?
It is definitely the people. I also like the freedom that I’m given to grow and learn as an individual; especially, when it comes to collaborating with software vendors to improve user experiences. Traveling to different institutions is a great way to stay knowledgeable about how different schools and offices meet the needs of their student populations. I am very passionate about finance in higher education, so this is very relevant to me as a person.
What areas do you specialize in?
My specialty is managing federal work-study programs overall. I did this a lot for a variety of institutions and often built these programs from the bottom up. I also specialize in data analysis and research methodology where I synthesize large quantitative reports to later present them to institutional stakeholders for approval.
How do you stay up to date with regulations and policy changes?
Participating in state associations, NASFAA forums, federal websites, and lots of webinars. Those are the spaces where you really get information that is useful.
What challenges do you see on the horizon in Financial Aid?
Changing regulations and how we fund higher education are always going to be the main challenges in my opinion. A lot of our programs are not user friendly and it’s hard to teach the next generation of professionals when our systems are out-of-date.
What advice would you give to someone just entering the field?
The best way thing to do is find a mentor, whether it’s in your office or state association. Find someone to guide you and stay as close as you can to those people because they will help keep your mind focused on helping students. Financial aid is a part of Student Affairs, so fostering that commitment is important wherever you go as a professional.
What do you like to do outside of your profession?
I love spending time with my family. I try to do everything I can with my wife and 7 year old while they think I’m still cool enough to hang out with. I like to play tennis and basketball for exercise. We grow lots of different spicy peppers at home and I come up with all kinds of dishes to include them in. I also volunteer with Habitat for Humanity where I either help build houses or work as volunteer staff for their community events.
If you are interested in joining David and the rest of our College Aid Services team, review our current openings 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).