Community Spotlight: Meet Bill Spiers From Tallahassee State College
In Brief:
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Bill Spiers, Director of Student Financial Services at Tallahassee State College, shares how his team is improving access and reducing student dropouts by leveraging Nelnet Campus Commerce solutions—including Payment Plans, Past Due Payment Plans, and automated Workday integration. With Nelnet Campus Commerce’s support in loan default resolution and proactive communication tools, the college continues to put student success first.
Blog Post
Director of Student Financial Services Bill Spiers joined us from Tallahassee State College to discuss his experience with Nelnet Campus Commerce and the solutions he's been leveraging to tackle his institution's challenges in navigating student accounts.
Introduce yourself with your name, role, and institution.
I am Bill Spiers. I’m the director of Student Financial Services at Tallahassee State College in Tallahassee, FL. My role includes financial aid, VA, scholarships, cashiering, and student accounts.
How long have you been with Tallahassee [State College] and working in higher education?
I've been at Tallahassee [State College] for 27 and a half years. Before that, I was at Jacksonville University. I've been in higher education since 1979.
Tallahassee’s a good place to work. It’s a good community and a very innovative institution. We have good support for our staff, and Tallahassee State has been very good to me. It’s a place I can call home.How large is your team, and how many students do you support on your campus?
I have 16 on my staff. We support between 12,000 and 13,000 students. This year, I anticipate we'll support a little over 13,000. We're excited that we've continued to grow.
What does a typical "day in the life" look like for you?
Every day is a little bit different because I'm looking at everything, including new federal regulations that are coming out, the dates that need to be input to support students and all their efforts, notifying students that they have a balance on their account, and the availability of financial aid. So, every day is entirely different.
What do you love most about your current role?
The thing I love most is working with the students. I'm in an administrative role, but I'm still an educator, and I am responsible for trying to educate, prepare, and inform, just like the instructor in the classroom. Through the years, I’ve had a little less contact with the students, but the best part of the job is working with the students and trying to find solutions.
What is your biggest challenge?
One of our biggest challenges is making sure students understand that they have to pay by the fee payment deadline. We’ve taken on that challenge over the last couple of years and reduced the number of students who dropped out for non-payment.
We make outbound calls to all the students who owe and ensure everything is in place, either with financial aid or if they will make a payment, or we recommend the Nelnet payment plan. We’re telling them that the plan is out there and that they should consider joining that plan if they can’t pay their tuition and fees upfront in the total amount.
By educating and communicating with students, we’ve been able to change trends so the number of students enrolling is going up, and the number of [students] dropping out has gone down. This past fall, we went from dropping, on average, about 1400 students a year to about 650. We saw a significant increase in the number of people who use Nelnet.
Besides Payment Plans, what other Nelnet Campus Commerce solutions does your institution currently use?
We have multiple students who have their loans processed through Nelnet, so we work with Nelnet regularly on default resolution issues, trying to help get students out of default or help them find students who are in default. Our primary products are Payment Plans and Past Due Payment Plans. We added these this past year for students who have old, past-due balances and are trying to clear them. They're willing to try to pay through the semester, and we're also participating in the past due balance plan.
We have specific guidelines we have to meet to have a payment plan. Nelnet is the only company that meets the state criteria for payment options as outlined in the state board rule. We were glad that Nelnet was willing to work with us here in Florida to keep a program going that allowed us to provide payment plans at all.
Are there any additional reasons why your institution chose Nelnet Campus Commerce?
The level of customer service and support we received was a trust factor for me, as it was for the college. We knew that we were going to take care of you, and you were going to take care of us. Nelnet has been there and provided what we needed, and that’s the reason you do business with people. You can trust them.
Can you provide an example of how Nelnet Campus Commerce demonstrated excellent customer service with your institution?
We wanted to automate our communications with Nelnet Campus Commerce, and your IT folks worked with us and our team with Workday to automate more of the process with the payment program. It simplified life on both sides of the fence since we're getting information imported, and we can export information better. It's been a real plus to work with Nelnet to find solutions to the problems of IT communications.
How do you measure or evaluate your experience with Nelnet Campus Commerce?
It’s how many students we can provide access [to education] for who may have had a past-due balance or how many students we can move from a drop list to taking credits. That's how we can begin to measure that.
We've had a shifting population, and now we have students coming from affluent homes who may be able to pay for the tuition but need a little bit of help getting it paid for. Now, we have an avenue for them to pay over time, which makes a big difference for many families, even though our tuition is low.
What’s next for your role and for Tallahassee State College?
For Tallahassee, the next thing is adding additional baccalaureate degrees and expanding our workforce offerings. We are also ensuring our tuition remains affordable, ensuring students are notified in a timely and efficient manner of their debt to the college, and providing them with options to ensure their debt is paid. So, for the college, it's continuing to innovate and look at opportunities. We’re also looking at AI opportunities.
What advice might you have for other institutions considering partnering with Nelnet Campus Commerce?
Be prepared to work as a partner with those who will come alongside you. Be very forthright with them. Make sure they know your concerns before they become problems and be willing to innovate along the way.
I recommend Nelnet Campus Commerce because of our good relationship. I trust your product and Nelnet's willingness to work with us to make that product work for us. I've been a regular supporter and am willing to share my stories with others regularly because trust is a big thing for me.
Want to be featured in our next Community Spotlight?
We’d love to hear your Nelnet Campus Commerce story! Reach out to us to share how our solutions have helped your institution or learn more about how Nelnet Campus Commerce can help your institution simplify student financial services.
Author: Nelnet Campus Commerce
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