Top 12 Financial Aid Counselor Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a compelling resume as a Financial Aid Counselor means spotlighting a nimble mix of counseling savvy, regulatory fluency, and systems know‑how. The skills below speak to the real work: guiding students through a maze, translating policy into action, and moving aid cleanly from eligibility to disbursement without losing the thread.

Financial Aid Counselor Skills

1. FAFSA Proficiency
2. Banner (Ellucian)
3. PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (Financial Aid)
4. Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)
5. Verification Processes
6. Award Packaging
7. NSLDS Expertise
8. Loan Counseling
9. SAI (formerly EFC) Calculation
10. COD System
11. ISIR Analysis
12. PowerFAIDS

1. FAFSA Proficiency

FAFSA proficiency means understanding the full application arc, advising students and contributors accurately, and ensuring submissions are clean, consented, and complete. With FAFSA simplification now in play, the Student Aid Index (SAI) has replaced EFC, and IRS Direct Data Exchange requires explicit consent from all contributors. Precision matters. Timing matters. Context matters even more.

Why It's Important

Strong FAFSA guidance keeps students eligible, prevents processing snarls, and squeezes every possible dollar from federal, state, and institutional sources. Accurate first contacts reduce corrections, verifications, and delays down the line.

How to Improve FAFSA Proficiency Skills

Sharpen your edge with habits that stick:

1. Track policy shifts: Stay current on annual FAFSA updates, SAI methodology, contributor roles, and signature/consent rules.
2. Master scenarios: Practice complex family configurations, dependency overrides, special/unique circumstances, and professional judgment workflows.
3. Build checklists: Standardize intake, consent capture, and document requests so nothing falls through a crack.
4. Run clinics: Host filing sessions, record quick explainer videos, and circulate tip sheets that demystify the stickiest steps.
5. Debrief often: Review error patterns after each cycle and adjust procedures before the next rush hits.

How to Display FAFSA Proficiency Skills on Your Resume

2. Banner (Ellucian)

Banner is the backbone many campuses lean on for student information and financial aid operations. From application tracking to packaging, disbursement, holds, and compliance reporting—it connects dots across departments and keeps audit trails tidy.

Why It's Important

An integrated system cuts manual rework, curbs errors, and speeds up awarding and reconciliation. Counselors who move with confidence in Banner smooth the entire aid lifecycle for students and colleagues.

How to Improve Banner (Ellucian) Skills

1. Learn the flow: Map data movement between Student, Financial Aid, AR, and General—know where values originate and how they update downstream.
2. Use Workflow and rules: Automate routine checks, communications, and routing to shorten turnaround and standardize decisions.
3. Tame queries: Build saved queries and population selections that surface exceptions, holds, and packaging gaps quickly.
4. Document the quirks: Keep internal guides for local customizations, job schedules, and term roll routines.
5. Promote change control: Test in non‑prod, version your rules, and log changes so fixes don’t trigger new fires.

How to Display Banner (Ellucian) Skills on Your Resume

3. PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (Financial Aid)

In higher education, the financial aid work lives inside PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, not the institution’s general ledger suite. The Financial Aid module handles ISIR loading, packaging, budgeting, satisfactory academic progress tracking, and disbursement coordination.

Why It's Important

Accurate, timely awarding depends on clean setups and confident navigation. With sound configuration and good data hygiene, counselors can resolve exceptions faster and support students without bottlenecks.

How to Improve PeopleSoft Financials Skills

1. Configure with intention: Review aid year setup, equation rules, packaging plans, budgets, and communications before go‑live each cycle.
2. Lean on queries: Build PS Queries for exceptions, duplicate records, incomplete files, and SAP monitoring—make the system surface what needs action.
3. Integrate cleanly: Coordinate with IT on ISIR loads, COD exchanges, and GL interfaces so timing and data formats line up.
4. Adopt Fluid UI: Streamline pages and tiles your team uses most; fewer clicks, fewer misses.
5. Train and cross‑train: Share playbooks for troubleshooting so coverage doesn’t evaporate when one person is out.

How to Display PeopleSoft Financials Skills on Your Resume

4. Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)

In financial aid, SAP means Satisfactory Academic Progress—measured pace, GPA, and maximum timeframe. Counselors interpret policy, apply appeals consistently, and help students chart a path back to good standing.

Why It's Important

SAP safeguards federal and institutional funds while keeping students focused on completion. Thoughtful monitoring paired with clear interventions can turn a near‑derailment into a comeback.

How to Improve SAP Financial Aid Skills

1. Clarify the rules: Publish plain‑language criteria, examples, and timelines so students know the stakes before trouble starts.
2. Flag early: Use early‑alert data and midterm grades to reach out before SAP failure happens.
3. Streamline appeals: Create transparent forms, documentation checklists, and review rubrics to ensure equity and speed.
4. Personalize plans: Coordinate with advising to build term‑by‑term academic plans and checkpoints that are realistic, not wishful.
5. Audit decisions: Periodically sample appeal outcomes for consistency and compliance.

How to Display SAP Financial Aid Skills on Your Resume

5. Verification Processes

Verification confirms that FAFSA‑reported data matches reality. Think income, household size, number in college, and other flagged elements. The work is detail‑heavy and deadline‑sensitive.

Why It's Important

It protects program integrity, directs funds where they belong, and shields the school from audit findings. Done well, it also reduces student frustration.

How to Improve Verification Processes Skills

1. Standardize requests: Use structured, student‑friendly templates with clear deadlines and examples of acceptable documents.
2. Digitize documents: Offer secure e‑forms and upload portals; automate completeness checks where possible.
3. Validate identities: Apply consistent identity and dependency checks to deter fraud without creating unnecessary hurdles.
4. Triage efficiently: Prioritize by aid impact and term start; resolve high‑impact files first.
5. Close the loop: Log corrections, track turnaround times, and analyze recurring error codes to refine upstream guidance.

How to Display Verification Processes Skills on Your Resume

6. Award Packaging

Pell, state grants, institutional aid, loans, work‑study—packaging weaves these into a coherent offer aligned to cost of attendance and eligibility rules. Then it explains the offer in language a family can actually use.

Why It's Important

Clear packages drive enrollment decisions and prevent unpleasant surprises. The right sequencing and proration avoid overawards and late‑term scrambles.

How to Improve Award Packaging Skills

1. Clarify costs: Present direct and indirect costs side by side, with term splits and assumptions laid bare.
2. Sequence smartly: Apply grant‑first strategies, then work, then loans—respecting program rules and institutional policy.
3. Make it visual: Use simple charts that show unmet need, out‑of‑pocket estimates, and loan impacts over time.
4. Personalize: Tailor messages by student profile—first‑gen, transfers, graduate, online—so guidance hits home.
5. Spell out next steps: Acceptance deadlines, documents needed, and how to reduce or decline loans—no guesswork.

How to Display Award Packaging Skills on Your Resume

7. NSLDS Expertise

NSLDS holds federal loan and grant histories—enrollment reporting, aggregate limits, servicers, and more. Counselors tap it to confirm eligibility, guide repayment planning, and keep transfers aligned.

Why It's Important

Reading NSLDS correctly prevents overborrowing, flags overlapping aid, and supports accurate counseling on repayment and forgiveness programs.

How to Improve NSLDS Expertise Skills

1. Know the reports: Enrollment reporting, transfer monitoring, aggregate loan limits—understand what each view reveals and how often it refreshes.
2. Watch the rules: Track regulatory updates and operational bulletins via FSA Partner Connect so your practices match current guidance.
3. Practice edge cases: Consolidations, TEACH conversions, overpayments, and servicer transitions—work these until they’re second nature.
4. Network: Compare approaches with peer institutions to sanity‑check processes and solve oddities faster.

How to Display NSLDS Expertise Skills on Your Resume

8. Loan Counseling

Loan counseling educates borrowers on rights, responsibilities, repayment options, interest, and default prevention. It’s not just compliance—done right, it’s financial wellness.

Why It's Important

Informed borrowers choose smarter amounts, pick sustainable plans, and avoid delinquency. That helps students and protects cohort default metrics.

How to Improve Loan Counseling Skills

1. Start early: Offer pre‑borrowing sessions that explain costs, loan limits, and career‑aligned repayment choices.
2. Use plain speech: Replace jargon with straight talk and examples tied to monthly budgets.
3. Leverage calculators: Demonstrate repayment tradeoffs live—standard vs. income‑driven, interest growth, and total cost.
4. Follow through: Send nudges before grace ends, during recertification windows, and when life changes hit.
5. Teach the whole picture: Budgeting, emergency funds, and credit basics make loan guidance stick.

How to Display Loan Counseling Skills on Your Resume

9. SAI (formerly EFC) Calculation

The Student Aid Index (SAI) has replaced the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) under FAFSA simplification. It’s a need analysis result informed by income, assets (as applicable), family size, and other factors supplied by the student and contributors through the FAFSA and Direct Data Exchange.

Why It's Important

SAI anchors need‑based awarding. Understanding its levers helps counselors explain outcomes, guide appeals, and build compliant, equitable packages.

How to Improve SAI Calculation Skills

1. Learn the formula: Know how income, assets, and allowances shape SAI—and what changed from EFC.
2. Get the data right: Ensure accurate contributor consent, tax year alignment, and household details. Small mistakes ripple.
3. Spot special circumstances: When data no longer reflects current reality, apply professional judgment with solid documentation.
4. Explain clearly: Show families how SAI interacts with COA, Pell eligibility, and institutional need models.
5. Stay current: Annual tweaks happen—keep procedures and training synced to the latest guidance.

How to Display SAI (formerly EFC) Calculation Skills on Your Resume

10. COD System

The Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) system is where federal grants and Direct Loans get originated, adjusted, and reconciled. It’s the handshake between your SIS and federal funds.

Why It's Important

Clean records in COD mean on‑time disbursements, fewer rejects, and smooth reconciliation. Messy files slow money and invite findings.

How to Improve COD System Skills

1. Tighten setups: Verify program, loan, and Pell setups at the start of each year; align enrollment levels and calendars.
2. Work the edits: Monitor responses and edit codes daily; fix root causes so the same rejects don’t cycle back.
3. Reconcile relentlessly: Match disbursements, draws, and refunds on a set cadence with finance—monthly at minimum, more often in peak terms.
4. Document timing: Map file exchanges and posting windows so disbursements land when students expect them.
5. Protect data: Enforce access controls and auditing; sensitive records deserve ironclad handling.

How to Display COD System Skills on Your Resume

11. ISIR Analysis

The ISIR distills FAFSA inputs into the record schools act on. It carries SAI, flags, C‑codes, comment text, and matches that can change everything—from verification to eligibility to packaging.

Why It's Important

Careful ISIR review catches conflicts early, prevents misawards, and speeds students toward a finalized package.

How to Improve ISIR Analysis Skills

1. Read the fine print: Understand C‑codes, reject codes, and comment codes so you resolve the real issue, not the symptom.
2. Prioritize risk: Triage by Pell impact, conflicting information, and approaching disbursement dates.
3. Automate queues: Use your aid system to route flagged records, generate outreach, and track resolution times.
4. Cross‑check: Coordinate with admissions and the registrar to reconcile identity, enrollment, and program details.
5. Audit and refine: Sample resolved files each term to spot trends and tighten front‑end guidance.

How to Display ISIR Analysis Skills on Your Resume

12. PowerFAIDS

PowerFAIDS centralizes aid operations—ISIR imports, packaging, communications, and reporting—with many institutions now shifting to the cloud version for scale and reliability.

Why It's Important

Automation reduces manual churn and errors, while built‑in compliance checks keep awarding aligned with policy. Counselors get time back to actually counsel.

How to Improve PowerFAIDS Skills

1. Own the setup: Review aid year parameters, budgets, and packaging rules before volume spikes.
2. Automate the routine: Use batch processes for communications, tracking, and common corrections; reserve manual time for true exceptions.
3. Build reports that matter: Create dashboards for pending verifications, C‑codes, and disbursement readiness.
4. Document workflows: Capture step‑by‑step procedures and escalation paths so new staff ramp fast.
5. Engage the community: Share pain points and solutions; many “unique” issues aren’t unique at all.

How to Display PowerFAIDS Skills on Your Resume