Financial Aid to Present at National Training Conference

Another exciting announcement from financial aid comes along with a big honor in Orlando Florida.

MCC Financial Aid Specialist Brenda Averette

Brenda Averette will be presenting 2019 PowerFAIDs User and Training & Conference in Orlando, FL on June 21-22. PowerFAIDs is the software that MCC’s Financial Aid Department, as well as countless other institutions, uses to process and disburse Financial Aid, track paperwork, and remain compliant with the Department of Education.

She will be presenting on Pell Grant Processing Including Year Long Pell.

What is Yearlong Pell, and what does it mean for students?

Year-round Pell is a program designed to help students graduate faster and incur less debt while doing so. The program was used in the past and as federal laws changed the program was done away with, it was later revived in the 17-18 academic year. This allows students to attend summer who wouldn’t normally have Pell left in an academic year.  What it does is gives the Financial Aid office the option to award and disburse Pell from the next award year, if that will be a greater benefit to qualifying students.

This allows students to take more classes in a year, graduate faster, and avoid growing their debt while doing so.

 “The Pell Grant is a wonderful opportunity for students that do not have the funds to go to school, it allows them to have that chance and since it’s a grant and not a loan, they don’t have to pay it back thereby avoiding the college debt crisis, and Yearlong Pell helps qualifying students attend year round and graduate faster.”

Though she is a little nervous about the presentation, she has until June to practice and perfect it and she’s happy to be representing MCC and sharing, as well as expanding, her knowledge on Financial Aid.

“To my knowledge we’ve never done a presentation at a PowerFAIDS Conference before, and this is one of the hardest topics to talk about so I’m a little overwhelmed but happy to be offered the opportunity to show others what we do.”

Along with Yearlong Pell she will also be covering Pell Grant processing and sharing with other colleges, universities, and trade schools how MCC uses PowerFAIDS to disburse funds quickly and accurately.

Way to go, Brenda and the entire Financial Aid team!