In the July 17 Washington Post, there was an article that left me flabbergasted.  It was about how some families in the Washington, DC, area are adjusting to the new economic realities by cutting back on getting other people to do things for them that they could do themselves.  And they're not talking about do-it-yourself projects that seem so easy on HGTV, like replacing your fireplace mantle.  They're talking about things like mopping the floor and getting your kids to mow the lawn instead of paying for a landscaping service.  One guy even confessed that he now wears his shirts twice before he takes his them to the dry-cleaner.  He used to only wear them once??!! And then off to the cleaners??  How wasteful...

One particular forecast made in the article is that even people who don't need to cut back have been and that these habits may very well remain ensconced even if the Dow goes back over 12,000.  We'll see about that, but it seems to suggest that Americans of all socio-economic stripes have settled into a new way of living and spending, as if we've all hit some sort of "cosmic reset" button as a result of the economic crisis. 

Naturally, this got me thinking about the ways the economic turmoil of the past 18 months has affected the new reality of managing financial aid programs and the inherent challenges and opportunities.  Many signs point to the belief that this year and last were not anomalies (except in the steepness of their trajectories), but a reset on how things will be in the future. 

You should be (and are, I'm sure) thinking about this, too. If you're reading this, I presume that your school's still open and the onslaught of the latest financial aid season is past you.  Use the relative calm remaining this summer to reflect on your personal, your school's, and your parent community's mindsets about how life will be different:  what are the "cosmic resets" that you, your school, and your parent community must make and adjust to the new baseline on budgeting, spending, value, and priorities.  Think about how to set up a system to react and plan around this new baseline of attitudes about spending, choices, value, need vs. want, etc.   Think about and study things such as:

The new SSS methodology...many agreed with the principle while lamenting the timing.  How much of a difference did the new methodology make in your ability to fund students to keep full enrollment?  What did you see as the difference between contributions for 2009 compared to 2008?  If you weren't able to meet the "new need," how can you move a bit closer to that in the upcoming award cycle?

Effects of the economy...many feared that parents would make different choices about the value of a private school when the times and circumstances require penny-pinching in new ways.  In the words of one director of financial aid in a conversation with me a couple of weeks ago, "Financial aid saved my enrollment for next year!"  Was this true for you as well?  Did you have to talk about and use financial aid differently in order to maintain a strong enrollment posture?  Did this mean giving more need-based aid than originally budgeted?  Or did this mean thinking differently about discounts and merit aid to keep those who might otherwise be able to pay  but who had reset their ideas of value and sacrifice and put your school's tuition on the chopping block?

Job loss...many feared the spike in aid requests as the economy forced lay-offs and shutdowns.  Did you experience this more or less than you anticipated?  Did you have sufficient processes and policies in place to handle these situations with an effective "case-by-case" sensitivity balanced with a standard approach to ensure equitable and objective treatment of these tough situations?  Did you create one-time, conditional awards requiring status updates?  Did you revise SSS results using family projections of future income?

Budgeting needs and sufficiency...many feared that their financial aid budget wouldn't be sufficient to meet the new need of current full-paying families and the new need that the economy would bring for more requests for aid from prospective students as well.  Exacerbating this fear was the reality that market-battered endowments (and their returns) would present a more daunting challenge to boosting aid budgets than in recent years past.

For most schools, the reality is that the financial aid budget is rarely sufficient in the best of times.  So, to some extent, the aphorism "you can't miss what you never had" in this context means that stretching limited dollars among an expanding pool of requestors is something that schools have had a great deal of practice with for decades.  Did you experience a shortfall in financial aid adequacy more or less than what was typical?  If more inadequate, how did that affect yield and other enrollment patterns?  How much more aid would you have needed to hit typical or optimal yield?

So, you survived through all these fears, anxieties, and issues.  How did you do that?  How did you address these challenges?  Ask yourself these questions, recount the stories about what you experienced, study your financial aid facts and figures, and use the comment section below and other forums to share your experiences, challenges, and solutions with your colleagues to help us all know how you did it...and how you might do it moving forward, now that the "cosmic reset" button has been pressed.