Digital Financial Aid Platform Adds Scholarship Matchmaking Component
CampusLogic has licensed Scholarship University to be part of its own digital student
engagement
platform for financial aid. Scholarship University is a web-based
technology
developed by University
of Arizona (UA) students to help their peers find
scholarships.
First implemented in 2009,
Scholarship Universe was developed by a collaboration of UA students
and UA
student affairs staff members to streamline the
institution's process for awarding departmental scholarships. The
technology
has since evolved to help students find scholarship sources both within
and
without the university. When a student logs into Scholarship Universe
for the
first time, she is prompted to answer questions that are generated from
eligibility requirements of currently available scholarships.
The
system stores the answers in the student's profile, which can be edited
at any
time, and uses the data to find suitable matches in the scholarship
database.
Users see matches only for scholarships that are open for application,
and they
receive a snapshot of the information needed to apply. In addition,
students
can track scholarships for which they have already applied and update
their
search.
More
than $8 million in non-UA affiliated
funding opportunities have been linked to students since the
implementation of
the software program in 2009.
The CampusLogic platform,
intended to simplify the process of finding and obtaining college
funding,
already has three other components: StudentForms, CampusMetrics and
AwardLetter. Scholarship Universe will be the fourth. It is currently
being
used by more than 300,000 active students at nearly 60 colleges and
universities.
"Thanks
to this collaboration, we
will be able to promote scholarships within AwardLetter, provide
student-scholarship matching analytics within CampusMetrics, and remind
students to renew their scholarships via StudentForms," said Camps
Logic COO
Chris Chumley.
CampusLogic,
in Gilbert,
AZ, was the very first company chosen by a new
initiative of Arizona State
University, the ASU Draper
GSV Accelerator, created to source, fund, pilot
and credential new
products created by higher-education technology companies. Companies accepted into the
accelerator program receive training and mentoring, an entrepreneurial
boot
camp in Silicon Valley and access to a network of experts.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.