“This is a win -win for us, working with Diamond has overall been a very positive experience. The application that was built for us is truly revolutionizing the way we do our work and deliver programs to our constituency.”

Alan Phillips, DHEC Scholarship Coordinator

Higher Education Commission

HEC Makes the Grade with Online Scholarship System

The Client

The Delaware Higher Education Commission (DHEC) is a division of the Delaware Department of Education. DHEC is responsible for ensuring that higher education is accessible for all Delaware Students.

The Business Need

HEC receives over 12,000 scholarship applications each year. The scholarship applications are driven by applicants who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to assist with college funding for college. The heavy volume of information processed by HEC creates an enormous amount of paper-based files and requires correspondence with applications and educational institutions. HEC needed a reliable system to automate and streamline the entire scholarship process and operations.

The Solution

DHEC chose Diamond Technologies to assess their needs and implement an automated scholarship system that would maintain records and streamline their internal paper and direct mailing process. The Scholarship Management System consists of three components, a public web site, administrative intranet site and scholastic interface. Students use the website to submit applications, view application status, request scholarship funds disbursement and update their personal profiles. DHEC staff use the administrative site to manage the operations workflow, automatically generate student correspondence, and keep track of correspondence with students and schools. The scholastic interface is used for sending correspondence, distribution of scholarship funds, tracking of FAFSA conflicts, managing scholarship award decisions, and viewing reports.

Business Impact

Through the Scholarship Management System initiative, paperwork has decreased by 90%. The scholarship workflow process has been streamlined and the system is benefiting all the departments at the Higher Education Commission.