School Financing? ISAC Has An App for That

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Published on April 22 2013 3:20 pm
Last Updated on July 14 2013 12:07 pm
Written by Greg Sapp

The Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) today launched the first free smartphone app specifically designed to help Illinois students plan, prepare and pay for college. The B4College app sends personalized notices directly to students who download and install the app on their mobile device.

“Just as technology is invaluable in the classroom, students are turning more and more to mobile devices for their social and information gathering activities,” said Eric Zarnikow, ISAC Executive Director. “B4College provides individual students with highly personalized content on topics they self-select as part of their college preparation process.”

Developed in-house by ISAC’s College Access and Outreach, IT and Research, Planning and Policy Analysis teams, B4College automatically delivers relevant, timely and personalized alerts to college-bound students. Currently the application sends two types of user-selectable alerts: FAFSA completion reminders and alerts about local ISACorps and other agency outreach events.

Zarnikow noted that several factors made development of a smartphone app possible. “B4College leverages ISAC’s unique data handling capability and custom data sets to generate notices to individual students based on their location and FAFSA filing status.“

“B4College allows ISAC to share some of its institutional knowledge accumulated over 50 years of helping to make college accessible and affordable for Illinois students," Zarnikow added. "We want to put that experience to work in a way that makes sense for today’s students and today’s technology".

Zarnikow added that the B4College app will continue to be enhanced, expanding the number of services available to today’s always connected students. Currently available for Android smartphones at Google Play, an iPhone version will launch in early summer. A Facebook account is required to use the app.

Additional information, including an introductory video and link to Google Play, is available at ISAC’s website, www.isac.org.