Yale created a separate office this year to handle undergraduate financial aid as part of a broader effort to restructure Student Financial Services.
The new entity, the Office of Undergraduate Financial Aid, will focus on financial aid processes and policies for Yale’s undergraduate population. Before this year, University Director of Financial Aid Caesar Storlazzi, who oversees the University’s entire financial aid system, also handled undergraduate financial aid. The new office’s director, Scott Wallace-Juedes, will report to both Storlazzi and Yale College Dean Marvin Chun through Jeremiah Quinlan, whose title is now dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid.
“Over the years, we have been working more and more closely with the Admissions Office and saw this as a great opportunity to make this a really close relationship,” Storlazzi said. “So we are doing now at Yale College what we had been doing in the past, and we are doing now at Yale College what all the other professional schools do.”
Storlazzi explained that Yale had a director of financial aid who worked specifically with undergraduates until 1997, when the University dissolved the position to save money. At that point, the University director of financial aid took over the responsibilities for Yale College.
Many of Yale’s graduate and professional schools have their own financial aid offices, Storlazzi said. That structure makes “perfect sense” because most financial aid policies and initiatives do not come from a University-wide overseer but rather from the schools themselves, he added.
With the creation of the new office and the director of undergraduate financial aid position, Storlazzi said, his responsibilities will revert back to their pre-1997 scope. That includes ensuring that financial aid policies comply with the law, working on yearly audits, hiring and training new staff members, introducing new technology in the office and administering broad financial aid initiatives.
Wallace-Juedes will be tasked with leading a team of financial aid professionals who will focus solely on Yale College, working with undergraduates and managing Yale’s undergraduate financial aid budget, according to his job description. He will also collaborate with other University entities on establishing “effective financial aid policies, practices and communications strategies.”
Quinlan said Wallace-Juedes will leverage his experience and understanding of Yale College to help the new office integrate into the broader Yale College umbrella.
Wallace-Juedes was hired following a national search for the position that the University began in December 2016. Before coming to Yale, he spent six years working as director of student financial services and assistant dean of admission and financial aid at Wellesley College. Before that, he worked as an associate director of financial aid at Oberlin College and as an assistant director of admissions at Notre Dame College of Ohio.
At Wellesley, Wallace-Juedes reorganized the college’s student financial services system and adapted and implemented new information technology solutions. He called working at Yale a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“The opportunity to work with Caesar, with Jeremiah … with Yale students, a very engaged student body, [and] to be at a school with [such] resources — those were the reasons this was so attractive to me,” Wallace-Juedes said. “You’re not going to find [such openings] at other institutions, especially ones that are as deeply committed as Yale to need-based aid, and that’s the place where I want to be. I want to focus on families’ ability to contribute and colleges’ ability to partner to pay for [the students’ education].”
Wallace-Juedes added that he is excited to create a new office “with some new goals and expectations” while also working with longtime Yale employees.
Yale will conduct additional hires to bring the new office’s staff to about 14 people, but the bulk of the officers will be people who already work at Yale, Wallace-Juedes said. At the moment, Storlazzi said, the officers’ experience levels range from two years’ worth of work for Yale to more than 25 years.
“The move and the transitions and the growth of the colleges have brought a position as well, so there will be some hiring and some new faces to help implement the changes that we’ll be talking about,” Wallace-Juedes said.
Storlazzi was appointed director of financial aid in 2005.
Anastasiia Posnova | anastasiia.posnova@yale.edu