The Student Financial Services office is located in the basement of Skinner Hall. Photo by Carmen Mickelson ‘24.
By Anoushka Kuswaha ’24 & Tara Monastesse ’25
The executive director of Student Financial Services, Tayler Kreutter, recently announced in an email to the College community that Mount Holyoke College students would each be assigned a financial counselor. The email, personalized for each student, notified them of their respective counselor’s name and email address.
“After an office wide reorganization, we have shifted our model and are excited to debut our new high touch, student-centered vision,” Kreutter wrote. “This means you now have a consistent ‘go-to’ counselor, regardless of your question within SFS.”
A total of eight counselors have been assigned to undergraduate students, with students grouped based on the first letter of their last names. A ninth counselor will work exclusively with Professional and Graduate Education students. Through an online portal available on the College website, students can schedule a 15-minute meeting with their assigned counselor and select a prompt explaining why they are seeking assistance with their finances. Kreutter explained in the announcement email that the new counseling initiative will allow SFS to “fit [students’] needs and busy schedule[s].”
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, Kreutter explained that the new initiative was based on student information and feedback about satisfaction from the past few years when working with SFS. The feedback was collected through the Student Conference Committee survey and focus groups conducted by external consultants, according to Kreutter. Kreutter illuminated that the data showed the SFS team that “while [we] were working hard, that work wasn’t translating as care for our students.” Kreutter went on to explain that upon her joining the SFS office as executive director this past March, the College had recognized this student feedback as a “top priority.”
Kreutter explained that the goal of the SFS office was to be “seen as a valued and reliable partner and resource in [students’] success journey [at] Mount Holyoke College.”
In the eyes of the First-Generation and Low-Income Partnership, the new initiative is a step in the right direction. In a statement issued to the Mount Holyoke News, the organization revealed the thoughts of some first-generation and low-income students at Mount Holyoke when interacting with SFS, describing the process as “difficult … and even more challenging without the help of family.” The First-Generation and Low-Income Partnership looks to the new initiative as a potential means for more effective interaction, describing previous models of communicating with SFS as “often feel[ing] draining, alienating and unsupportive.” An individualized, more personal approach was expressed as potentially “reliev[ing] some anxieties when getting through financial aid processes.”
The need for SFS to become an office that is more personalized and approachable to all students has been recognized by both the student body and the SFS administration. Kreutter describes the new initiative as part of their bottom line goal of “creat[ing] an office where computers do the work computers can do; and humans do the work that only humans can do.” In support of the new initiative’s more interactive approach to financial aid and services, as per Kreutter’s interview, SFS has hired three new staff members, with two serving as SFS counselors: Brian James, Chris Campbell and Jennifer Holstrom serving as the Assistant Director of SFS. The three new counselors will be joining an existing staff of eight, including Kreutter.
With enthusiasm, Kreutter described that the reasoning behind making SFS more personable as an administrative office was to give students at Mount Holyoke the opportunity “to get to know their counselor, from the time they are a prospective student, all the way through to the graduation stage.” Kreutter expressed that she would like students to know there will always be someone looking out for each student’s respective financial needs throughout the course of their college education.
The First-Generation and Low-Income Partnership expressed in their statement that the personalized counseling approach is “a good start, [but] there is more to be done [to make SFS] more accessible to low-income students.” The organization described its members’ interactions with SFS and offices like it at MHC as “highly-intimidating.” The idea of SFS taking on a more personal approach can especially help FGLI students erase what they explained was an often-felt “disconnect” between themselves and the unfamiliar administrative offices they have to interact with as college students. The First-Generation and Low-Income Partnership expressed that a further individualized approach for first-generation and low-income students, providing them with a counselor at SFS solely dedicated to helping them navigate their financial situations, or perhaps the creation of a center dedicated to assisting FGLI students, would further benefit both students and the College as a whole.