Director, Financial Aid

Position Summary Transform lives by providing leadership for Mid-State Technical College's financial aid operations, ensuring accurate, timely, and student-centered service across the district. Lead and develop the Financial Aid team, oversee compliance with federal and state requirements, and strengthen processes that help students access and understand financial aid. Collaborate with college partners to reduce financial barriers and support student enrollment, retention, and completion. Duties & Responsibilities Lead the daily operations of the Financial Aid Office, ensuring accurate and timely application review, processing, awarding, and delivery of federal, state, and institutional financial aid. Supervise, support, and evaluate Financial Aid staff. Establish clear expectations, coordinate workloads, and provide coaching, professional development, and cross-training to support effective service and continuity of operations. Ensure financial aid services across the district reflect Mid-State's ICARE values and help students access and understand financial aid. Coordinate staff coverage to provide timely, accurate assistance and support staff in resolving complex student questions and concerns. Oversee compliance with federal and state financial aid requirements. Maintain current policies and procedures, communicate regulatory changes, and guide staff in implementing required updates. Serve as the College's Veterans Certifying Official, overseeing the processing, certification, and reporting of veterans' education benefits in accordance with applicable federal and state requirements. Collaborate with Advising, Outreach, Financial Wellness, and other college partners to address financial barriers and support student enrollment, retention, and completion. Coordinate financial aid outreach and education with staff and college partners, including workshops, financial aid application assistance, and activities for district schools and communities. Collaborate with Financial Wellness and the Mid-State Technical College Foundation to coordinate financial aid with emergency assistance, scholarships, and other student financial resources. Oversee the administration of student work-study programs in collaboration with participating departments. Coordinate with Business Services and applicable funding sources to ensure accurate financial aid disbursement, reconciliation, and processing of student accounts, and resolve account issues related to financial aid. Prepare, review, and submit required financial aid reports. Coordinate financial aid audits and program reviews, maintain supporting documentation, and oversee follow-up actions. Develop and manage the Financial Aid Department budget and recommend resources needed to support effective operations and staff development. Evaluate financial aid processes and service outcomes to identify and implement improvements. Collaborate with Information Technology and other college partners on system testing, reporting, and technology changes. Represent Financial Aid on college committees and participate in relevant professional associations and statewide workgroups. Perform other duties as assigned. Qualifications Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution required. Master's degree preferred. Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience in financial aid administration required. Demonstrated leadership experience through staff supervision, training, project leadership, or oversight of a financial aid program or function required. Working knowledge of federal Title IV financial aid, State of Wisconsin financial aid programs, and federal and state veterans' benefits, including interpreting and applying related regulations, policies and procedures required. Ability to design, oversee, and assess multiple aspects of a financial aid program, and implement changes and improvements as needed. Experience using student information systems, financial aid databases, and reporting tools to support accurate processing and informed decision-making. Ability to evaluate workflow and processes to develop and implement plans/programs leading to greater efficiencies while leveraging technology. Must possess excellent problem resolution, organizational, interpersonal, communication, leadership, and project management skills. Must possess ability to: Focus and manage individual performance by helping others set performance goals and then, track results and evaluate performance effectiveness. Encourage others to implement better approaches to address problems and opportunities; lead the implementation and acceptance of change within the workplace. Use appropriate methods and a flexible interpersonal style to build, motivate, and guide a cohesive team to complete team goals. Set high goals for personal and group accomplishment; use measurement methods to monitor progress toward goals; tenaciously work to meet or exceed goals while deriving satisfaction from that achievement and continuous improvement. Maintain effectiveness when experiencing major changes in work responsibilities or environment (e.g., people, processes, structure, or culture); adjust effectively to change by exploring the benefits, trying new approaches, and collaborating with others to make the change successful. Take prompt action to accomplish work goals; take action to achieve results beyond what is required; be proactive. Set high standards of performance for self and others; assume responsibility and accountability for successfully completing assignments or tasks; self-impose standards of excellence rather than having standards imposed. Demonstrate a positive attitude and approach toward work. Must embrace Mid-State's core values of student centeredness, commitment, accountability, respect, integrity, and exceptional service. Compensation & Benefits Compensation is dependent upon experience and qualifications. Benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance; life insurance; short-term and long-term disability; paid time off and holidays; flexible spending account; Wisconsin Retirement System; 403(b) and 457; employee assistance program; educational assistance; and employee wellness program. How To Apply To be considered for this position, you must complete an online application. You should have the following information available when completing an application: Contact information (addresses, phone numbers) Employment History Education Electronic copy of resume and transcripts Application materials submitted via mail, fax, email, or in-person will not be considered. Incomplete applications or applications noting "See Resume" will not be considered. Continuous recruitment with first review of completed applications starting November 6, 2026. Applications received on or after November 6th may be considered in a secondary pool. Please note that Mid-State's main form of communication during the recruitment process is email. In addition to receiving communications from email addresses with domain, you may receive emails from . Please be sure to watch your inbox as well as junk, spam, and clutter folders. Equal Opportunity Mid-State Technical College, an equal opportunity employer and educator, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or other applicable legislated categories, in its services, employment programs, and/or its educational programs and activities, including but not limited to admission, treatment, and access. Mid-State Technical College provides reasonable accommodations to assist persons with disabilities to access or participate in its programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies: VP-Human Resources, 32nd Street N, Wisconsin Rapids, WI 54494, Phone: or Email:. Optimize Your Online Application Experience Below you will find a few technical tips to help ensure a positive and successful online application experience: Be sure to fill in each field in the application. You will receive an error message at the time of submission and your application will not be submitted if each required field is not filled in. Avoid clicking the back, forward, or refresh buttons while applying. Doing so will interfere with the submission and may result in data loss. Clear your browser's temporary files/cache and cookies prior to beginning the application. Disable pop-up blockers. Do not bookmark or favorite the application. Navigate to the careers site each time you wish to access your saved/submitted application. Your application session will remain open for 24 hours assuming you do not close your browser. To ensure submission, complete the application process within that time frame. The following browsers are currently supported: Internet Explorer 9, 10, 11 Firefox Google Chrome Safari The following operating systems are currently supported: Windows 7 and 8, both 32-bit and 64-bit, as well as Mac OS 10.6 and greater. If you experience issues in submitting your online application, please contact Human Resources at .