By Luke Lattanzi | Staff Writer
Baylor One Stop, a service aimed at providing financial aid assistance to students, has moved to the third floor of the Bill Daniel Student Union Center (SUB) after having been previously located at the Clifton Robinson Tower.
The financial aid assistance program offers a “concierge-like” service to students who are seeking guidance on a variety of topics, such as financial aid, housing or meal plans, according to the BaylorProud website.
“One Stop is a concept that some colleges over the last 20 to 30 years have begun implementing,” Taryn Anderson, senior director of enrollment services, said to LTVN reporter Kaity Kempf. “Where they take multiple departments together on their campus and try to consolidate services for the benefit of students, so that it’s not as many offices to go to, it’s not as many phone numbers to call or emails to send.”
Anderson said One Stop’s main function is to combine multiple aspects of the financial aid process, which are normally spread out across different university departments, to make it easier for students to navigate while in college.
“We cross-trained, we hired a new team, we found a location and consolidated a ton of contact points so that students could contact one office,” Anderson said.
Texarkana senior and One Stop employee Alana Avard also said the service’s relocation to the SUB was a significant benefit for students.
“I think it helps students because, especially freshmen or people that live on campus or don’t have cars, [it] makes it easier for them to be able to reach us,” Avard said. “I think that it’s more in a central location and people are more aware of where the SUB is rather than at the tower.”
Avard also said being in the SUB allows students to know what the One Stop service is in the first place, now that it is situated in a popular campus location.
“Before I started working here, I didn’t know that it existed,” Avard said. “I think us being in more of a better location is easier for students to at least know who we are. It kind of gives them a better idea that we actually exist.”
Anderson also said One Stop typically helps students with a wide-range of problems depending on the time of year. Problems such as helping students remove holds on their accounts so they can register for an upcoming semester, or even a simple phone call walking students through how to set up a payment plan for their tuition.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as ‘How do I set up a payment plan?’” Anderson said. “We can walk them through over the phone, we can do that through a Zoom, or they can come in person, we can help them set it up.”
Anderson said she urges students to come to One Stop when in need of financial aid assistance to ensure they are getting information that is most applicable to their situation.
“If they have a question that’s money-related, [One Stop] is a great place to start,” Anderson said. “Students typically go to their friends first, which is fine, but your friends may not have the right direction, they may have a totally different circumstance than you do. So options available to them may not be available to you, or vice-versa.”
Students can use the One Stop service to help plan their futures as it relates to their financial aid situation, Anderson said.
“They don’t have to wait until they have an issue to come visit us,” Anderson said. “Our favorite meetings with students are when they’re wondering if there are scholarships to apply for next year, or when thinking of ‘I’m gonna go to graduate school at Baylor and I’m currently an undergrad, what can I do to plan for that?’”
Students shouldn’t hesitate to use One Stop to their advantage, Anderson also said.
“We are more than happy to meet with students on the front-end to help make sure that they are prepared for the next year,” Anderson said.
