College Affordability Manager

Position Type:
Full time

Remote:
Yes

Salary Range: 70,000 - 80,000

The College Affordability Manager serves as Dunwoody’s lead strategist and practitioner for the Finance Forward initiative—responsible for improving affordability clarity, reducing unmet need, strengthening retention, and enhancing repayment readiness for all Dunwoody students. This role provides individualized financial planning, student‑facing counseling, scholarship optimization, and data‑driven affordability insights. It leads cross‑functional alignment and active collaboration with Academic Advisors, Career Coaches, Financial Aid, Student Accounts, and Institutional Research to ensure students receive clear, timely, personalized information at every critical financial decision point, consistent with federal best practices for higher education financial education delivery.

The Manager also serves as a bridge with Financial Aid Counselors, with the authority to award, adjust, and interpret Financial Aid awards using PowerFAIDs and the Workday Enterprise Management System.

• Award federal and state financial aid and actively monitor and enhance the scholarship award strategy.
• Conduct 1:1 financial planning meetings with students and families, creating personalized affordability roadmaps covering grants, loans, work‑study, scholarships, payment options, and expected post‑graduation loan obligations.
• Provide guidance using best‑practice principles, including accurate financial information tailored to each student’s profile and decision stages.
• Support FAFSA completion and verification and assist with interpreting aid offers and total cost of attendance.
• Conduct student financial check‑ins to support retention and academic momentum.
• Curate and maintain a comprehensive internal and external scholarship library, advising students on eligibility and positioning.
• Collaborate with the Financial Aid team to align scholarship awarding with unmet‑need trends and affordability goals.
• Advise institutional scholarship strategy and scholarship administration.

• Create and deliver workshops, seminars, and classroom sessions on financial literacy topics (budgeting, aid navigation, loan management, credit, financial planning).
• Develop content that reflects national evidence that financial fragility negatively impacts academic performance and that structured wellness programming improves decision‑making and stress outcomes.
• Lead communication strategy for affordability messaging and financial literacy content, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and frequency.
• Coordinate with platform partners (e.g. NPC, Niche, Grad Ready) to integrate digital modules into Dunwoody’s curriculum and advising pathways.
• Partner with Career Coaches and the Career Ready Program to connect students with early employment opportunities and industry‑preferred pathways.
• Develop financial plans that integrate potential earnings, work‑study options, internships, and early employment pathways.
• Lead Dunwoody’s emergency aid process, applying the institution’s decision tree, prioritizing rapid response, and ensuring rapid turnaround.
• Coordinate department referrals when situations fall outside emergency‑aid criteria.

• Own all Finance Forward KPIs, including accountability for reporting and improving performance:
  Yield, Affordability, Retention, Stability, and Repayment metrics.
• Provide weekly and semester dashboard updates to the VP of Enrollment Management by compiling relevant and reliable KPI data.
• Serve as a SME and public resource for linking national evidence on the relationship between financial stress and academic interruption to guide early‑warning outreach and targeted support strategies.
• Serve as the central coordinator between Enrollment Management, Financial Aid, Student Accounts, Career Services, Academic Advisors, Institutional Research, and Advancement.
• Train staff and peer mentors in providing culturally sensitive, clear, and accurate financial guidance, aligned with national advisor training principles.
• Represent the Finance Forward Initiative to potential donors and…