“Why Financial Aid Staff Keep Leaving (and What It Says About What We Value in Schools)”
The conversation started at a dinner party, the kind where nobody wants to talk about work, but everyone ends up talking about work anyway. A friend of a friend had just taken a job in the financial aid office at a mid-sized private university. She was bright, organized, and genuinely excited to help families navigate the FAFSA maze.
Someone asked how the pay was.
She laughed, but not in a happy way. “I’m making about what I made waiting tables, honestly. Except now I have to explain the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized loans to a parent who’s crying because she’s afraid she’ll lose her house.”
The table went quiet.
I thought about that moment for weeks. Because I work in education, and I’ve seen the same scene play out in schools, in community colleges, in charter networks. Someone takes a role that’s supposed to be about helping families and students access money for school. They quickly realize the pay is bad, the workload is heavy, and the emotional labor is enormous. And then they leave.
—
A few months after that dinner, I found myself in the financial aid office of a community college. Not as a counselor, but as a parent. My son was starting his first year, and I had been told there was a hold on his account. Nothing serious, but paperwork was missing.
The office was understaffed. That was obvious immediately. There were three people behind the counter, and at least a dozen families waiting. One woman had been there for over an hour, holding a thick folder of tax returns and W-2s. She looked exhausted.
When we finally got called, the woman helping us was named Maya. She had been working in financial aid for about four years. She was fast, precise, and reassuring. She found the missing form, scanned it, and cleared the hold within minutes.
“Thank you,” I said. “You do this all day?”
She smiled. “All day and then some. We’re currently short-staffed. One of our counselors just left for a job at a state agency. Better benefits, better pay, less paperwork.”
I asked her if she liked the work.
“I love the work,” she said. “I don’t love the pay. But I like being able to tell a student that their bill is covered, or that they qualify for a grant they didn’t think they’d get. That part never gets old.”
She didn’t complain much, but she told me enough. Her starting salary was in the high $30,000s. She had been promoted once. She was now making just over $47,000, which sounded fine until she explained that she was responsible for clearing a caseload of nearly 1,500 students. She processed verifications, reviewed documentation, calculated expected family contributions, and answered phone calls that never stopped.
“It’s not the salary that gets you,” she said. “It’s the pace. You can’t do this job well if you’re constantly behind. And you’re always behind.”
—
So is a salary of $40,000 to $55,000 decent for a financial aid role?
The honest answer is: it depends, but for most people, not really.
Let’s be practical. For an entry-level financial aid counselor or specialist, $40,000 is common. A senior financial aid advisor, assistant director, or someone with several years of experience might make $50,000 to $70,000, depending on the region and the institution. Directors can make six figures at large universities, but those roles are few, and they come with pressure that scales accordingly.
But here’s the problem. The people drawn to financial aid work are rarely drawn to it because of the salary. They’re usually people like Maya. They like helping. They like untangling complex systems. They get satisfaction from making higher education possible for someone who wouldn’t otherwise afford it.
That kind of person often accepts a modest paycheck at first. They tell themselves the meaningful work is worth it. For a year or two, that trade-off works.
Then the email arrives at 7:45 PM. A dean wants an updated report. A parent wants a second review of a denial letter. A student’s loan didn’t disburse because of a coding error no one caught. The salary that felt acceptable in July starts to feel like an insult by December.
And here’s what parents and teachers don’t always realize. When financial aid staff leave, the impact isn’t just administrative. It’s human.
A new financial aid counselor takes time to learn the system. There’s a learning curve. Mistakes happen. Verification gets delayed. Award letters are sent late. Families miss deadlines. Students lose grants because someone in the office was overwhelmed.
So what can practical, everyday people do about this?
If you’re a parent with a child in college, a few concrete moves help.
When you contact the financial aid office, ask for the counselor by name. Thank them when they’re helpful. That may sound small, but these staff members hear from people who are frustrated more often than grateful. A simple “I appreciate you” genuinely shifts the tone of a day.
When you receive an award letter, read it carefully before calling. That reduces the burden on already-stretched staff. Check if the college has a net price calculator. Use it. Understand what documents you’re likely to need before you initiate a verification.
If you’re a teacher, you can help by talking to families about financial aid as a process that starts early. It’s not something to fix in April of senior year. Encourage parents to file the FAFSA as soon as it opens, even if they think their income is too high. Many families miss out on help because they assume they won’t qualify.
And if you’re someone considering a financial aid role, think about the whole picture, not just the starting number. Ask about advancement opportunities. Ask about caseload sizes. Ask about whether you get regular supervision and training. A role with a slightly lower salary but a realistic workload may, in the long run, be the better decision.
—
I ran into Maya a couple of months later at the grocery store. She had a badge on, but it was new. She had transferred to the registrar’s office.
“It’s still administrative,” she said. “But it’s calmer. I get lunch breaks. No one yells at me about disbursements.”
I asked if she missed financial aid.
“Sometimes. I still think about a transfer student who cried when I found her a work-study slot. That was a good day. But I couldn’t keep doing the job the way it needed to be done. It wasn’t sustainable.”
She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t rallying against the system. She was simply being honest. She had learned a lesson many people in education learn eventually: caring about students doesn’t pay the rent.
Maybe the real salary question isn’t what financial aid staff make. It’s what we lose when the good ones decide the job costs too much. That balance hasn’t been figured out yet. And for a lot of offices, it’s still being sorted out one resignation at a time.
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