The Student Financial System Project began in 2013 with the goal of creating an integrated financial system for both the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships and the Graduate Division.
The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships processes over $300 million in student loans, grants and scholarships for more than 16,000 UCSB students while keeping in compliance with federal, state and university regulations and guidelines. The current UCSB financial aid system consists of 3 major components: a homegrown information system called WAVE, tightly integrated with the Department of Education software called EDExpress, and a student and staff financial aid web portal called FAWeb.
Graduate Division’s financial support system is responsible for the administration and distribution of over $50 million annually in Graduate Student Fellowship and Fee Remission support. Funding sources include central campus resources, extramural contract and grants, academic department funding including gifts and endowments as well as funding provided by external entities for numerous specialized fellowship programs. Currently, Graduate Division's student financial-support system's homegrown set of functionality is built around MS Access and designed to support a highly manual and inefficient process that relies heavily on institutional knowledge held by key staff members.
Both present student financials systems have dependencies and interdependencies with numerous other campus enterprise systems. Additionally, these systems have dependencies external to campus systems including those of State and Federal agencies and UC Office of the President.
An integrated Student Financial System will not only increase information exchange and intersection between the Graduate Division and the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, it shall allow the campus to enhance interoperability, gain operational efficiencies, improve our business processes and, in the end, better serve the UCSB community.