Date of Award

Winter 2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Foundations & Leadership

Program/Concentration

Higher Education

Committee Director

Dana Burnett

Committee Member

Joseph Devitis

Committee Member

A. Dallas Martin

Committee Member

Jack Robinson

Abstract

The certification of financial aid administrators has been debated for over 37 years. A job satisfaction survey conducted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA, 2008a) revealed that college and university administrators' perceptions of the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of the services provided by the financial aid office have a direct effect on the job satisfaction of financial aid practitioners. The study also hinted at a possible link between these perceptions and the resources allocated to the financial aid office. Open-ended comments collected as a part of the survey suggested that while members of the financial aid community view themselves as a profession, those external to the industry might not share the same perception. A certification process for financial aid administrators was suggested as a solution. As such, this non-experimental descriptive exploratory analysis of existing data examined the need, benefits, and level of support for a voluntary certification process within the new theoretical framework of professionalization developed for this study. The findings refute decades of anecdotal evidence indicating the majority of financial aid administrators do not see a need for or support a certification process, fills a void in the literature, and provides recommendations for future research.

Comments

Note: Revisions were made to this dissertation in early 2017 in consultation with the Committee Director.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/6jr2-bp48

ISBN

9781267112408

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