Kelly Knight Fractional SFA Consultant

Fractional Financial Aid Consulting

Fix Your Compliance & Packaging Bottlenecks Before Your Next Financial Aid Director Starts.

A targeted, 60-90 day advisory sprint that updates your Title IV Policies & Procedures and modernizes your ISIR-to-award workflows—giving your incoming Director a clean, high-performing shop on Day 1.

What the Next 60-90 Days Can Actually Fix

While your search runs, most institutions simply hold the line. The policies stay outdated. The award pipeline stays slow. The compliance risk stays quiet until the next audit or the new Director walks in and discovers it.

That window does not have to be wasted.

I run a focused, fractional engagement designed for one purpose: hand your incoming Director a clean, high-performing financial aid operation on Day 1 instead of a forensic cleanup project.

The Work

1. Title IV Policies & Procedures Overhaul

I review, update, and operationalize your P&P manuals so they reflect current federal requirements and your actual institutional practices. No more binders that no one follows. You leave the engagement with audit-ready documentation and clear ownership.

2. ISIR-to-Award Pipeline Audit & Redesign

I map the full path from ISIR receipt to award letter, identify every manual touchpoint and bottleneck, and redesign the workflow for speed and accuracy. The goal is simple: awards go out faster, fewer students fall through the cracks, and your yield no longer suffers because the aid office is the slowest part of the enrollment cycle.

3. Knowledge Transfer & Handoff

Before the engagement ends, I document the new processes, train key staff, and prepare a clean transition package so the new Director inherits systems—not mysteries.

This is not interim leadership. I do not sit in the Director’s chair or absorb the daily operational noise. I run a surgical project during the exact window when most schools do nothing.

Why This Works

I've spent eleven years inside financial aid offices at community colleges, technical colleges, and private universities—leading teams through growth, mergers, system consolidations, and full Department of Education Program Reviews. I know what outgoing Directors leave behind, what incoming Directors walk into, and what actually has to be fixed before the new hire starts.

The difference is focus. Instead of managing the office, I spend the search window eliminating the structural problems that usually consume a new Director’s first year.

What You Get at the End of the engagement

•  Updated, compliant Title IV Policies & Procedures

•  A faster, cleaner award production process

•  Documented workflows and trained staff

•  A new Director who can lead instead of dig out

The search still takes 90–120 days. Use that time to give the person you hire a real chance to succeed.

Ready to stop handing new Directors a broken engine?

TITLE IV Advisory Group, LLC