For Many Students, Funding Is the Difference Between "Beyond Me" and "I Can Do This" with Alexandra Serengil of GUS Canada Colleges and OIHI
Student financial aid is one of the most consequential conversations that happens inside a career college — and one of the least understood from the outside.
Alexandra Serengil, Director of Student Accounts at GUS Canada Colleges, and lead financial aid officer for the Ontario Institute of Health and Innovation, has spent nine years inside that conversation. She came to Canada as a language student at ILAC, graduated from George Brown's events planning program, went back to ILAC to help students who looked like her, joined Toronto Film School where she learned the full complexity of provincial and out-of-province funding, and eventually arrived at OIHI — where she describes her work as taking something very complicated and making it navigable for students who are already navigating a great deal.
In this episode of the EdUp Canada Podcast, host Michael Sangster and Alexandra walk through what actually happens when a student walks in the front door of a career college and asks how they're going to pay for this. The admissions conversation. The financial aid consultation. The personal questions. The grant-versus-loan distinction. The early childhood educator grant that opens at 8AM and can close before 8:15. The mid-program touchpoint to make sure students still understand what they've signed up for. And the follow-up call after graduation to remind graduates that the loan doesn't disappear.
It's a conversation about the infrastructure that makes career college possible for students who would otherwise decide it's not for them — and the people doing the work of making that infrastructure make sense.
What to expect
[00:02:00] — "It's Never Just the Numbers and Regulations"
[00:04:00] — What Actually Happens When a Student Walks In
[00:06:00] — "We Ask Pretty Personal Questions"
[00:07:00] — Mid-Program Touchpoints and Post-Graduation Follow-Up
[00:14:30] — The ECE Grant That Closes at 8:15
[00:17:00] — "People Intelligence" — The Skill Lidia Taught Her
[00:21:00] — Adaptability — "It's Still Something I'm Working On"
[00:23:30] — The Student Who Came Back
Read the full transcript here: https://share.descript.com/view/gWmrNfRkxa2