By Allie Arcese, Sr. Director of Strategic Communications & Engagement
FAFSA. ISIR. SAP. R2T4. FWS. COD.
The financial aid profession is full of acronyms and jargon, and it can be easy to fall into speaking essentially a foreign language when your daily focus is on those terms. But effective communication — particularly with other campus partners outside the financial aid office — is critical for financial aid administrators.
During a Thursday morning session at NASFAA’s 2025 National Conference, a panel of practicing aid administrators shared foundational communication principles and the impact that clear messaging — or the lack thereof — can have on the financial aid office. For instance, communicating clearly within your office with your staff can profoundly impact operations, explained Nathan Lohr, FAAC®, deputy director of financial aid at Purdue University.
“The direction that you provide and the clarity that you provide determine whether your team can effectively implement the strategies and the ideas that you have,” Lohr said.
That clarity is just as important when communicating with other campus partners to ensure they know and understand basic financial aid concepts, as well as the needs and struggles the financial aid office experiences.
“Often, we rely on others to carry the message for us,” Lohr said. “That message can get garbled if you’re not clear from the start.”
Financial aid professionals can improve the clarity and impact of their messaging by tailoring messages to the appropriate audience (students, institutional executives, colleagues in another office), reviewing the tone and timing of their message, balancing advocacy and diplomacy, and understanding the implications of written and verbal communication and how that information can be used. The panel also suggested using artificial intelligence (AI) to make information more accessible, such as by changing the tone of an email, improving the level of reading comprehension, or making a message more succinct.
Publication Date: 6/27/2025
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