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To better serve students, the Financial Aid Office for Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering has been relocated from the basement of Hamilton Hall to the fourth floor of Alfred Lerner Hall. The move, which took place Friday, Feb. 4, is part of the Hamilton Hall renovation project.
Lerner Hall is considered an ideal location for the office because of the important student services role that financial aid plays -- some 65 to 70 percent of College and Engineering students use the office, often with their families, to discuss issues pertaining either to need-based financial aid or one of the university's financing options.
"Historically, colleges and universities located their financial aid offices in out-of-the-way places, but that is now changing with the recognition of the services provided by financial aid offices," said David Charlow, associate dean of student affairs and director of financial aid. "Our old financial aid office was in a dark basement not appropriate to a university of Columbia's stature and did not enable us to provide the quality of service students seek. The old space was drab and uncomfortable, and did not have an appropriate level of privacy. We look forward to playing our part in the general effort to upgrade the quality of service provided to students."
While the new facility in Lerner has the same floor space as the old one in Hamilton, the space is far more attractive and comfortable, and it affords students and their families facilities in which they can meet with financial aid officers in complete privacy.
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