907: LIVE From the 2024 ⁠Career Education Convention⁠ - with Matt Chinn, Chief Operating Officer, ⁠UNISA, Inc.

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back everybody. It's your time to ed up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio on another episode here from CQ, CECU. That's the Career Education Conference here in Indianapolis, Indiana, brought here by our amazing, amazing friends, LeadSquared, who've sponsored us to be here. And I ran into a new friend.

Now he will be my friend forever because he said he listens to the podcast, and anybody I find that listens to the podcast is my friend. Let me see what I can do to bring him in here artfully because I've got to give him the entrance he deserves after all the compliments about the podcast. Here he is ladies and gentlemen, wait for it... I got to get... I wasn't ready. We just did this impromptu. Here it is:

He is Matt Chinn. He is Chief Operating Officer at UNISA. Matt, what's going on? How are you?

Matt Chinn: Hey Joe, what's going on?

Joe: Welcome to the podcast. Did you know you were going to be recording with me? Like, tell the truth right now.

Matt: Not at all. 100%.

Joe: Tell the story. What happened?

Matt: Hey, I ran into Joe. I've always wanted to meet him. I've seen him on social media. So I had to say hello and now I'm here.

Joe: I said let's go record. Tell us about UNISA. What do you guys do?

Matt: We service payment plans for schools and loan servicing. We're a loan servicer. It has been an amazing ride for me. I've been in the business 16 years. We help out the CQ education community. We help out so many other sectors in higher ed as well, but it's just been amazing. We're a small business. We help these schools succeed, collect on their in-school and out-of-school payments. And yeah, it's my passion, my expertise. I just love doing it.

Joe: Amazing. So do you work with career colleges primarily? You work with other schools? What's your school mix?

Matt: You know, we're really balanced. We work with several career colleges, but we work with community colleges, state schools, private schools, you name it. But the career college sector is near and dear to my heart. I remember when I started out, just that fire, that passion, the innovation, the creativity. So I've always worked with these schools, have forever, and certainly love this sector and CQ.

Joe: What does loan servicer mean to somebody who's listening to this that goes, "Wait a minute, what do you mean loan servicer?" What does that mean?

Matt: You know, the landscape is changing. There's obviously federal student loans. There's private student loans. We service both of those. Nowadays, in the compliance regulatory environment, certain payment plans, extended payment plans, are regulated as loans, which doesn't quite make sense. So we help schools service loans, which can be extended payment plans. So we kind of cover the whole in-school and out-of-school collection, servicing, courtesy contact. We're not a collection agency, but we help schools out and their students with a best-in-class platform to basically collect on payments and make it a very easy experience for students. Do everything on your phone, keep it nice and convenient. And that's what we do.

Joe: You know, loan servicing or collecting or accounts receivable is a huge barrier for schools, right? Because for a couple of reasons. Number one, if you make it hard for the student to pay, they're not going to pay. Let's just say like that's a fact. You can, we just talked about this in the last episode. You can order an Uber like that, put in credit card information. You get charged. You don't even know you're getting charged, but it's charging your credit card. When I have to go pay, I've got to log into some system. I'm hoping that the information is right. I've got to click a button to pay. A lot of times that button doesn't work. I've got to navigate three, four screens. Eventually I just go, you know what? Screw this. I'm not paying if it's this hard to pay. The school's got to come find me. And then that's a problem, right? How hard does school make it in general to pay?

Matt: Well, you know what? That's where we come in. We've done some amazing things lately with co-branding, with really just helping a student know conveniently on the front side, hey, we're partnered with this servicer that you can trust them, you can easily manage all this on your phone, scan this QR code, do everything electronically if you wish. So we've had a lot of good experiences lately with co-branding. I think it's huge. I think students nowadays are cautious, and I don't blame them. Is this a third party? Are they legit? Are they partnered with my school? So we've done a lot of things lately in recent years of helping the student feel comfortable and know, hey, this is our third party, they're a partner, you can trust them, you can work with them, and here's how you can easily set up AutoPay, make a monthly payment, and outreach if you need anything at all.

Joe: How do students pay now? Is it Venmo? I mean, they want to pay by Venmo and the Cash app. But it's like, you can't really do that, can you?

Matt: You know, it's getting there. Obviously, credit card is huge. But it's funny. I see nowadays students, they still like some students write a check or a money order, believe it or not.

Joe: Get out of here.

Matt: They still want to pay online with a credit card or an auto pay. It's fuzzy, but definitely, PayPal's up and coming, Apple Pay, Venmo. But I think the lion's share is still credit cards.

Joe: Of course. Yep. You know, and I find that not as many, and I've noticed not as many students are carrying credit cards. They're just using apps connected to a credit card. Usually their parents' credit card. Adult students, a little bit different, right? Very wary of providing credit card information to a school or anyone, right? Two things you don't want to provide: Your social security number and your credit card information. Two things schools really need: your social security number and credit card information. How do you get around that fear? Is it really a trust issue? Like you're coming at me for money. I don't want to pay you, but I know I owe you. What is that trust?

Matt: It's a great question. You know, we partner with schools, their support on the front end is crucial. Again, to kind of, they typically utilize our software to set up a student on a payment plan and/or in-house loan. So they really kind of set the table and we help train them initially and ongoing to really let the student know, here's what's going to happen next. After you sign your Promise to Pay, you'll receive a text message, you'll receive an email with your greeting info. You can conveniently set everything up on your phone. If you wish to make the one-time payments in or auto-pay, here's how it looks, here's how it works. So I think that's really crucial. And if they, you know, nowadays the document they sign, it's so long. It's honestly almost 14 pages or longer, even for a payment plan.

Joe: But they kind of help them highlight here's the fine print. Here's what you need to see. They have like an amortization schedule and all that kind of stuff. Right. That's required by lending disclosures, but we help them focus in on the important pages. Just a few that basically are here's your specific repayment. Here's what it looks like. And here's how you conveniently set it up. And so like it is, how important is frictionless in this process? As you look at, you know, you're always thinking about frictionless.

Matt: Of course. 100%. And we do, you know, everything we can to capture students' references, additional information, their ongoing contact information, should they move, relocate, get a new email address. So that's kind of the key to our game as a servicer to continuously harvest good contact info.

Joe: You have to follow them, right?

Matt: 100%. Absolutely. Yeah. Like skip trace.

Joe: Yeah.

Matt: But you know, always that one-on-one, if you connect with someone, hey, Joe, is this still your preferred email, phone? Do you prefer text reminders, email, a billing statement? So that's always crucial, but certainly external resources as well if you're not actually connecting with someone one-on-one.

Joe: Well, I was thinking post-COVID, maybe people are a little bit more transient than they used to be, like they just pick up and leave and just not tell anybody?

Matt: Very transient. I think students in general, certainly higher ed. And I'm finding nowadays post-COVID, we see it going to electronic text reminders. I want to manage everything on my phone. I want e-bills. I don't want to get anything paper anymore. So I think text is the future. Email reminders.

Joe: How much paper do you do compared to what you used to do?

Matt: You know, it's honestly, I would say half. It's a great question. I would say about half have opted into e-billing, which is huge. But you still, again, I think to make sure you're doing the best servicing, maximizing your collections, some students still do tell me, I want to get the bill in the mail. Even some say, I don't even open it, but I get it. It's my reminder. I know what it is.

Joe: My God, it's my wife. I promise my payment. My wife. Shout out to you, Antonella. I know you'll never listen to this because you won't. But if you do, shout out to you. No matter what I do, my wife wants paper. She wants a paper bill. And I'm like, she thinks I'm getting ripped off if I don't do a paper bill. Like they're going to take some money from me or something. I just, I'm not about that. I want everything electronic and I want it right now. I don't want somebody to send me paper. You're killing a tree. Don't kill a tree for that. What about students? Tell me, are they feeling right now? Are they leaving school and they got a bill so they decide not to come back? And so you're trying to overcome this whole some college, no credential population that just won't come back. Are they staying with what you're seeing because it's all about where the money is to know what retention is.

Matt: You know, there is some of that certainly. And I think students are just, it's tough. There's been a lot of increased confusion with the federal loan pause which went on roughly 40 months. So I think there's this growing just kind of confusion of do I owe this? Do I really have to pay? Is my financial aid perhaps free? Which if it's not a grant, it's not. So it certainly has been a challenge for a servicer like us and I'm sure all to just again help continually educate students. Knowledge is power. Hey, this, you know, this is a private loan. This is your payment plan. It's not forgiven. You, you know, you owe even if you don't complete. A lot of times we help a student out if they, you know, withdraw and have a balance to potentially connect back with their school and then complete. But certainly we work through that. I'm a big, like I mentioned, knowledge is power. I think we just try to really do a great job of educating them on here's the deal, here's what's going on. Commonly there's a lot of confusion between federal and private loans, of course. But I think that you know, and students in general just being cautious nowadays again of who's the third party? Is it my school? Is this legit? Should I reach out to them? So, but a lot of ways to overcome that again. And I mentioned the co-branding. It's been a huge success for us as we reach out to students, they see their school name, they see their logo, they're connected to their school. So definitely ways to overcome it as well.

Joe: You know, you mentioned the federal loan pause. What a great thing for people who had federal loans to pay back. But if you didn't plan appropriately and think about that, you have to start up that repayment. Not such a great thing. When mine restarted, I was like, I'm paying off the whole bit, right? And I had enough money to do that, but there are millions of people that didn't and it smacked them right in the face when it restarted again.

Matt: So many didn't. I remember reading less than 1% were making payments, which could have been interest-free at the time. Yeah. But and like you said, lifestyles changed. Now the payments kick back in. You know, it was almost four years, which I can't believe. So how had their spending habits changed? Are they, do they have the money now to make the loan payment? So it certainly has been a challenge on the servicing and as well to say, Hey, now, and if the federal loans kick in while they're making their private loan payments and our payment plans, like you said, it's just another, another bill, another added cost to work through.

Joe: Craziness. Yeah. What else do you want to say about UNISA before we close this out? This impromptu episode of the EdUp Experience podcast.

Matt: So honored to be here, Joe. Can't thank you enough. Just want to remind you all that we're such a proud full servicer here. We are a smaller firm. We can do some amazing things as far as customization, streamlining with student information systems. I mentioned all the co-branding. We just were able to do some amazing things with schools to make it your dream repayment experience. And so keep that in mind. We're always here to help and we want you to succeed. Our goals are aligned with you. It's about helping students, helping them get to the finish line, helping them not default on their payment plans and loans, but true pleasure to be here with you, Joe.

Joe: Well, I'm glad to have you here and it's a great pleasure of, I always say that EdUp has been a great pleasure of my life to be able to highlight colleagues across higher education doing great work to serve students, companies you may have heard of, those you haven't heard of. And the only way you know what these companies and great people do is to head to their website and find out. And where are we going to find out more about UNISA?

Matt: We are www.unisainc.com. That's www.unisainc.com.

Joe: Ladies and gentlemen. This has been another episode of the EdUp Experience Podcast with my guest today. He's Matt Chinn, he's Chief Operating Officer at UNISA. Ladies and gentlemen, you've just ed-upped.