Florida Career College is a 4-year, private for-profit institution with multiple Pell ID’s and 4,000 full time enrolled students (FTE’s). With seven campuses to manage, FCC was looking for a financial aid management system that would meet several critical requirements. One of the top requirements was a financial aid solution that could automate the entire regulatory and compliance processes across their seven campus enterprise.    FCC also needed a platform that would be their single system for managing financial aid from A-Z and could be integrated with the institutions own management system.

“Regent provides a platform that automates every aspect of compliance and gives us a single system of record to manage across our many campuses,” said John McDougall, FCC’s Chief Financial Officer.

FCC also wanted a solution that would help them optimize enrollments with early needs analysis for prospective students. FCC awards students in person, during a scheduled meeting with the Financial Services Department. Regent’s early needs analysis and awarding feature is critical to their business and to their high level of student service. The results feed directly into Regent Enterprise, giving FCC the ability to immediately package an early award offer for the student based on the preliminary needs analysis information. The institution then confirms the accuracy of the information provided, obtains the appropriate family signatures, and submits the application directly to the Department of Education for formal processing.

“Regent Enterprise will speed-up the awarding, packaging and disbursement process,” said Sandra Gilliland, FCC’s Vice President of Financial Services. “Before selecting Regent, this process was extremely tedious and time consuming,” added Gilliland.

Another critical requirement for FCC was to become paperless in their financial aid processes. Regent enables this through its Student Self-Service Portal and Regent Imaging. In addition to student information being populated real-time as it is processed, the Student Self-Service Portal allows students to do the following:

- View, accept/reject awards in real-time
- View application status and academic progress status
- View messages to student from financial aid office
- Click on outstanding requirements for links to downloadable forms or additional information
- View loan history information for help with debt management/counseling.

The benefits FCC will gain from Regent Imaging include:
- Ability to view documents directly from FAM
- No integration or separate database is needed; imaged documents are stored within Regent Enterprise
- Robust OCR, OMR and barcode recognition functionality
- Reduced training time and support costs

“Regent Enterprise will help Florida Career College to leverage major efficiencies and significantly raise their already high level of service to their students,” said Michael Ratti, Regent’s CEO. “We are looking forward to developing our new partnership with Florida Career College and are excited to welcome them to the Regent family.”

About Florida Career College

Founded as Florida Programming and Educational Center, Inc., the College’s first classes began in September 1982 in Miami, Florida. In 1990, the School started using the name Florida Computer and Business School. Through the years, the school has grown and expanded with additional courses and programs to match student skills with the needs of the computer industry and business sectors.

In 1999, the School became a Microsoft IT Academy. The School opened its second campus in January 2000, in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The West Palm Beach Campus opened and started classes September 2002. The fifth campus in Lauderdale Lakes was opened in August 2005. In 2002, the College was awarded collegiate status by the Florida Commission for Independent Education. The Commission for Independent Education also approved the College’s curriculum for Allied Health Medical Programs.

In July 2006, the Clearwater and Brandon campus locations, formerly EduTech Centers, were acquired and renamed Florida Career College in February 2007.

About Regent

With more than 30 years of industry experience, Regent is a leading provider of financial aid management software solutions. The company’s Web-based, easy to use solutions interoperate with any established student information system. Regent provides institutions with improved efficiencies, fewer errors and enhanced services for students—equaling a positive return on investment within the first year.

Regent’s management solutions are designed and built by and for members of the financial aid and enrollment management community. Regent enables institutions to better craft and execute their financial aid strategy. With the Student Self Service Portal, the company also offers Twenty-first century access for students seeking financial aid information anytime, anywhere, from any device, in any language. For more information, visit: www.regenteducation.com.