Junior Financial Aid Counselor

Most days tend to involve one-on-one student or family appointments, follow-up work between sessions, and the support work that comes with helping students navigate education financing. You'll often explain financial aid award letters, walk through loan options and repayment realities, discuss budgeting for school costs, and document interactions for compliance under senior supervision.

The variance between settings is real — community colleges focus on lower-income, often first-generation students navigating Pell and state aid; large universities serve diverse aid populations with complex packaging; private nonprofit colleges layer in institutional aid and merit scholarships; for-profit institutions face heavier federal scrutiny on counseling practices. Family-facing emotional dynamics add weight to the role.

People who tend to thrive here are empathetic, patient, and comfortable with conversations that involve financial stress and high-stakes decisions. Mission alignment with educational access tends to be central. The work tends to offer direct impact on students' financial futures and clear ladders toward senior counselor or director tracks, with the trade-off being modest pay and emotional weight — for those who care about helping students make informed decisions about education debt, the work has real grounding.