MEFA: Expanding Services for Financing Higher Ed
The
Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority (MEFA) is a self-financing, not-for-profit
authority that was founded in 1982 by the Massachusetts state legislature. Its
primary purpose is to assist students, parents, colleges, and universities in
financing higher education. This is accomplished by providing critical information
necessary for planning and financing education, offering low-cost loans, and
establishing structured college savings programs.
MEFA Loan Programs planned to expand service to students and parents by offering
the Federal Family Education Loan Programs (FFELP), Stafford (subsidized and
unsubsidized), and Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) during the
2002-2003 Academic Year. This set of FFELP programs required MEFA to partner
with American Student Assistance (ASA), a federal loan program Guarantor. MEFA
also required an information technology solutions provider that possessed the
ability to work with CommonLine standard files, which enable a financial aid
office to send and receive files directly from the financial aid management
systems. After reviewing several technology providers, MEFA discovered that
Edgewater Technology, based in Wakefield, Mass., had extensive experience with
these file types, having supported ASA's systems development initiatives for
more than eight years. Tom Smith, MEFA's Director of Information Technology,
explains, "ASA recommended Edgewater Technology to us based on its understanding
of the student loan industry, knowledge of ASA's loan processing system, and
its history of delivery excellence for ASA."
Hands-On Experience
MEFA initially contacted Edgewater Technology in October 2001. Development began
in November 2001, and the system was finally launched in March 2002. Edgewater
worked closely with MEFA to understand its business requirements and document
them as functional requirements. Technical design and system architecture documents
were then created and followed by coding of rules and interfaces based on the
functional requirements. When development had been completed, the project team
performed three distinct testing phases: QA Test, User Acceptance Test, and
External Customer Test. Upon successful completion of the test phases, the system
was implemented at MEFA.
Edgewater chose to use a SQL Server database and the C++ programming language
because MEFA had a familiarity with both, as well as maintained a SQL Server
database for another system. By choosing these technologies, it minimized the
learning curve for MEFA employees. Knowledge transfer and training for technical
users was performed throughout the project ensuring MEFA had a solid understanding
of the system and a high comfort level with the technology prior to the system
going live. Having Edgewater Technology developers side-by-side in User Testing
scenarios and during the transition from development to production enabled MEFA's
Information Technology staff to take the project in-house easily and efficiently.
Database Administrators and Local Area Network (LAN) personnel also benefited
from the hands-on training.
System Enhancements
According to Smith, "The system has operated virtually bug-free since it has
been deployed." MEFA's system has required some enhancements over the past year
to better manipulate data that's being sent to them from the loan originator.
The enhancements provided additional error checking logic at the attribute level
and immediate e-mail notification of errors to the system administrator. As
far as hang-ups go, Smith explains, "Coordination of testing with MEFA's student
loan partner posed some challenges due to MEFA's implementation schedule, but
the problems could be characterized as insignificant."
MEFA's new system enabled FFELP data to be securely transferred between MEFA,
ASA, and its loan-servicing partner. In addition, MEFA is now able to closely
monitor its loan processing activities, while storing appropriate loan data.
With Edgewater's expertise in developing applications for the loan processing
industry, MEFA will be able to expand its service offerings and interface with
ASA efficiently and effectively. "Edgewater Technology has proven to be extremely
efficient and supportive," says Smith.
For more information, visit www.mefa.org,
or contact Tom Smith, Director of Information Technology, MEFA, at [email protected].