Newsroom

January 17 deadline for schools in Georgia and Rhode Island to join the Membership Program

By Beth Ziehmer

November 29, 2017

Mapping Your Future's Membership Program will be implemented Wednesday, January 17, 2018 for schools in Georgia and Rhode Island.

If your school is located in Georgia or Rhode Island, please share this information with the appropriate staff (such as business office staff that might use Perkins counseling) to ensure that your school is signed up for Membership as soon as possible.

What is the Mapping Your Future Membership Program?
Mapping Your Future developed the Membership Program following legislative changes during the past few years that have impacted the structure of the financial aid industry. The program accommodates those changes, provides access to new services based on new higher education challenges, and enables organizations to support an important public service through membership.

Mapping Your Future's Membership Program provides various institutions and organizations an opportunity to benefit from online services, including Online Counseling and MappingXpress, while supporting Mapping Your Future, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and helping students and families.

The Membership Program provides access to the counseling and customer service that schools have come to depend on from Mapping Your Future, and, in addition, Membership allows your school to benefit from using the 22 different counseling sessions, incorporating the calculators into your website, subscribing to MappingXpress for an additional fee, utilizing future products and services, and helping support Mapping Your Future. All of these services are provided at a cost much lower than it would be to develop the services.

What does the Membership Program mean to my school?
If your school is located in Georgia or Rhode Island, then your school must become a Member for you to continue to use Online Counseling on and after January 17.

There is a tiered membership fee structure, based on student enrollment. The fee structure is at the bottom of the Membership page located at mappingyourfuture.org/Membership/membershippart.cfm.

Why should my school become a Member?
Benefits of Membership include:

• 22 types of Online Counseling sessions
• School portal for data retrieval, management, and reporting
• Storage of archived records for three years
• ExitExpress and SchoolExpress (automated retrieval)
• Default prevention tools
• Ability to enable website integration of counseling
• Ability to enable website integration of calculators
• Retrieval of updated student data (from counseling)
• Customized counseling (adding some school-specific content, determine questions, regulatory required information)
• Counseling instruction flyers
• Direct Loan entrance and Direct Loan exit counseling presentations
• Educational games
• Printable exit counseling materials
• Servicer information sheet
• 2017-18 verification worksheets
• Federal student loan interest rate chart
• Ability to subscribe to the MappingXpress documentation collection service for an additional low fee
• Ability to subscribe to the EX$EL financial education and repayment success solution
• Customer service

What will happen if my school becomes a Member?
After you complete the Membership form located at mappingyourfuture.org/services/schoolserviceform.cfm?serviceID=5, an invoice will be sent to you via e-mail within a few business days.

In the meantime, you can continue to use as many of the 22 different Online Counseling sessions and other Member Resources, to the maximum benefit of your school and your students. You can integrate the counseling and calculators into your school's website, saving time and development costs. You can subscribe to MappingXpress or EX$EL for an additional fee.

What will change if my school does not become a Member?
Our hope is for all Georgia and Rhode Island schools to become Members and continue to use Online Counseling and the other tools and services on the website. However, we realize that not all schools will be able to become Members. If it is not possible for your school to become a Member by January 17, then you should ensure that all current and archived counseling sessions have been retrieved, as you will not have access to your secure Access Area once your account has been inactivated.

Contact the Mapping Your Future staff at feedback@mappingyourfuture.org or call (800) 374-4072 with any questions about Membership.