The dropout of students funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a perennial problem in many higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. Despite this, little research has been conducted to investigate this phenomenon, and this study sought to address this gap by investigating the dropout of NSFAS-funded students from HEIs in Northern Gauteng. The study adopted a qualitative methodology and a phenomenological design to explore the lived experiences of students who dropped out of HEIs. Thirty-one NSFAS-funded students, three senior management officials from three HEIs and one NSFAS senior official were purposively selected to form part of the study. Semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observations were utilised as reseach instruments and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was employed to analyse data. The findings of the study established that a lack of support for students, and personal, socioeconomic, institutional and health factors contributed to the dropout of students from HEIs. It was further established that the majority of students who dropped out did so because of the inefficient operations of NSFAS and the new student-centred model. The study also found that insufficient funding, late allocation of funds, stringent NSFAS requirements, lack of communication, late payment or nonpayment of allowances contributed to students’ dropout. To address these shortfalls, the study recommends that the student-centred model should be overhauled and replaced with an integrated system including departments such as DOH, SARS, DSD and DOL to identify students who are eligible for funding and assist in the efficient administration of NSFAS. It is further recommended that funding administered by both the national and provincial government departments be centralized and administred by the NSFAS to circumvent double dipping. Finally, it is recommended that students who fall within the R0 – R350,000 per annum household income category including SASSA beneficiaries be flagged by the system to automatically qualify for funding. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)

The primary objective of this study is to clarify a child's perspective within family matters surrounding financial aid from social services likewise how social workers interpret and implement the perspective in their tasks. Answers to the study's questions are supported by theories about the capacity for action and Shier's theory, Pathways to Participation. The foundation of this study is based on, among other things, scientific articles, literature, and reports that build the analysis which diverges into several themes as a result. The results showed that the children's perspective was inconclusive and a complex concept to define both in research and legislative texts, while simultaneously showing that the social secretary's broad and respectively narrow possibility of interpreting the law could be received as both negative and positive in the assessment of the child's best interests. There were also flaws in the documentation regarding the child's situation. In conclusion, some of the results of this study were based on the fact that the given legislative texts and guidelines did not provide a clear definition of how the social secretary should proceed in their work with the children's perspective and in the child's best interests.

Many studies show that children are negatively affected by the consequences of growing up in a family relying on long-term economic support. Despite this, the children’s perspective is flawed in the process of administrating financial aid. The outset during our study has been, from our own experience, that the application of the children’s perspective differs depending on which clientele the parents belong to. This potential difference could mean a legal uncertainty, which we consider to be highly relevant to investigate. The purpose of this paper is to enlighten the children’s perspective during the administration of financial aid to families relying on long-term economic support, to analyse how social workers state that they use the children’s perspective in these cases. Based on the purpose, we examined how social workers use their scope of action to include the children’s perspective when administrating financial aid, also if they included the children’s perspective differently depending on which clientele the parents belonged to. The study was performed with the help of a qualitative method in the form of semi-structured interviews with six social workers from the section of financial aid in an urban area of Malmö. The empirical data collected from the interviews were analysed from different perspectives, which then reconnected to the current state of knowledge and the theories Organisations-theory for public sectors and Street-Level Bureaucracy. From our findings we concluded that the difference in how the children’s perspective was included depending on which clientele the parents belonged to was non-existent. Instead, the findings showed that the children’s perspective was entirely missing. The respondents claimed, in different ways, that they tried to meet the children’s needs, but in the end, the needs of the children did not affect the outcome of the decisions. Therefore, one can argue that there is a legal certainty in the process, since the children’s perspective is not included in the administration of financial aid at all. Concurrently, the legal certainty means that the children’s perspective is not included at all. Furthermore, the respondents imply that there is room to include the children’s perspective in their scope of action. However, in doing so it creates a paradox since their guidelines, norms and laws constrain them to a point to which the scope of action no longer exists.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine how positive impacts could be achieved on student’s ability to successfully navigate financial aid processes within the Maricopa Community College system and specifically at Chandler-Gilbert Community College (CGCC). By evaluating existing processes and implementing enhanced system protocols (ESP), this study aimed to see how much of a positive impact ESP would have on student’s ability to access financial aid funding and enroll in classes. The study also took a closer look at how financial aid staff could better understand the systems through ESPs. In order to effectively evaluate the implementation of ESPs at CGCC, there were two approaches used within the research methodology. The first was front-end ESPs designed to target protocols that were student facing. The second was back-end ESPs targeting the financial aid staff and operations at CGCC. With the help of established ESPs, when looked at as a whole, more students were able to successfully navigate the complexities of the financial aid process, and receive their financial aid award offers at CGC. One of the front-end ESPs that held the greatest significance, in terms of successfully influencing students, was text messaging campaigns. The available evidence suggested text messaging as the most impactful way to get student’s attention. Although all of the back-end process improvements were important, the online policy and procedure repository quantitative data analysis suggested staff were empowered to provide a higher level of service with confidence and accuracy. Each of the ESPs made a small impact to student’s success and when aggregated the combined ESP results demonstrated a large enough impact that other colleges should explore the options of implementing ESPs to help more of their students receive financial aid. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2020

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study was about the change of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) administration system from a decentralised to a centralised one. The aim was to investigate the shift of the NSFAS administration system and its effect on the students' academic progress and overall well-being in the learning process at a historically Black university in the Western Cape Province. The study had three objectives. Firstly, to examine the efficacy of the NSFAS centralised application process. Secondly, to determine the impact of the process on the students' academic progress and overall well-being in the learning process. Lastly, to propose recommendations for the streamlining of the application process so that the negative impact on the students' academic performance be minimised or prevented.

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<p><br></p> <p>This three-paper dissertation focuses on state-based promise programs, specifically the intersection of state financial aid policy and promise program scholarship recipients’ relationships with institutional agents. Gaps exist in the literature on promise programs, particularly pertaining to legal research and specific eligibility and renewal criteria, such as the requirement to participate in mentoring programs. Thus, this dissertation will include: (a) a historical law review on Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars program, highlighting recent criteria for a College Scholar Success Program including a mentoring requirement; (b) a current legislative review of mentoring requirements in eligibility and renewal criteria for state-based promise programs; and (c) a scoping review of the literature on mentoring in promise programs to inform future research, policy, and practice. The intended audiences for the research are state policymakers, state governing boards for postsecondary education, PK-16 educational institutions, and practitioners in education, government, philanthropy, business, and non-profits. This dissertation will answer the following research questions: (a) What historical legislative precedence of the Indiana 21st Century Scholars program led to a mentorship requirement in a College Scholar Success Program? (b) How does the Indiana legislation regarding a postsecondary mentorship requirement compare or contrast to mentoring-related eligibility and renewal criteria for other state-based promise program scholarships across the United States? (c) What types of support do state-based promise program mentors provide their mentees? (d) What roles do state-based promise program mentors fulfill when supporting their mentees?</p>

With the continuously growing importance of technological development and automation, it is vital to separate the wheat from the chaff and distinguish the effective automation from the lesser. Previous economic research typically investigates automation on a sector or national level. I instead focus on the micro-level effects of a specific setting by investigating the effects of introducing Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the financial aid operation in the Swedish municipality Ronneby, initiated in 2019. Using a Synthetic Control Method (SCM) with yearly municipal level data, I find a reduction in Ronneby’s application duration for financial aid. The application duration estimates are noisy but robust, unanimous, and economically significant. I also investigate Ronneby's financial aid effects, finding no significant results. The share of households receiving aid in Ronneby displays an initial increase, followed by an equally sized fall at the end of the observation window. I conjecture that this movement could stem from the digitalized applications and a delay caused by the pandemic.

The need for financial literacy among Americans has become a national topic of interest. Economists, financial professionals, educators, and government officials recognize there is an overall deficit of financial knowledge. More specifically, higher education administrators have become increasingly concerned with ensuring that financial literacy tools are available to college students. Students of today face higher tuition and education-related costs, are less likely to receive grant funding to assist with their educational expenses, and are more likely to be in debt, carrying higher student debt loads than previous generations. Further, students lack the financial knowledge needed to make sound financial decisions. Hence, there is a need for effective financial literacy programs at post-secondary institutions. The purpose of this dissertation in practice (DIP) is to design a comprehensive financial literacy program model for students attending large diverse higher education institutions similar to the University of Central Florida.

The purpose of this study is to allow social workers who work with financial assistance to give their view of cooperation. We want to understand what opportunities and obstacles they experience with collaboration. The empirical material has been collected through nine semi-structured interviews with ten interviewees in nine different cities. According to both the previous research that this study deals with and Socialstyrelsen (2021), social workers who work with financial assistance need to cooperate with other actors in order to be able to perform the work that the professional role requires. This study shows that social workers who work with financial assistance face several obstacles in collaboration with other actors but also with other units within social services. Obstacles that stand out are lack of accessibility, lack of knowledge of each other's areas and lack of will. The social workers also believe that collaboration gives them knowledge of the work of other actors and that the work within financial assistance is made more efficient through collaboration. The study also shows suggestions for improvement regarding collaboration between financial aid and other actors. The study primarily shows a need for increased knowledge of economicassistance and the social workers' need to collaborate with other actors in order for them to be able to do the job that the professional role describes