Plant Seeds for the Future

by Nick Prewett, 2017-2018 MASFAA President

I’ve heard many times that you don’t find financial aid, it finds you.  So like many I started in financial aid a number of years ago because I was looking for a job. What started as a job, changed when I attended my first financial aid conference.  For me that was the Kansas financial aid conference.  For those of you new to the profession, this was pre-social media and when you paid per text.  I was amazed at how many people knew each other and cared about each other and   I’ll be honest, I felt a bit like an outsider. But as I got to know more and more people, I have developed friendships and built my own financial aid family. Our friends and family that are not in financial aid see the fun side of financial aid.  They don’t understand 399’s, conflicting information, R2t4, or many of the other annoying things we live on a regular basis.  Financial aid associations are where we can let our hair down and ask questions without being judged (well, sometimes we judge…). 

MASFAA is one of those life changing experiences. Use MASFAA to experience the fun, challenging, and rewarding side of financial aid.  Experiences make us who we are, they fill our buckets, but we need to ensure we fill other people’s buckets.  We were given an amazing organization, but it is time for us to make it better not only for ourselves but for the future of financial aid administrators.  It is time to plant seeds for the future, to pay it forward.  My challenge to MASFAA for the next year is to focus on who we are and what we can do to help our students.  To do that we need to have an organization that is strong enough to provide the training and support to advocate for student aid.  That comes from member involvement and member commitment.  This is our association and we get as much out of it as we put into it.

I encourage you to make MASFAA your own. Volunteer for a committee, find a mentor, build relationships and create your own financial aid family that you will rely on for the rest of your career. This is your organization, and it takes your commitment and passion to keep it successful, so help us make it great!