ctcLink Financial Aid (FA)

  • FAC – The Financial Aid Council is comprised of college financial aid staff, a WSSSC Liaison, and an SBCTC representative.
  • DirFinAid - FAC & FA Directors
  • Pri Faid - Private list for FA Directors and Asst. Directors only
  • FAST – The Financial Aid Systems Team is a FAC subgroup that is comprised of college staff from varying colleges who work together to identify system and technology enhancement needs for the ctcLink system.

  • Higher Education User Group (HEUG), pronounced HUG, is a collective of higher education PeopleSoft users that support one another in making the most of the products. Access recordings from conferences and other knowledge-sharing events.
  • Oracle - Our system, ctcLink, is our version of PeopleSoft. PeopleSoft is a product of Oracle. While the information provided on Oracle’s pages is not specific to our version, the delivered functionality is universal.
  • PeopleBooks - View the latest documentation for PeopleSoft Enterprise products as well as archived documentation of past releases In this virtual library.
  • PS Utilities - PS Utilities is a Google Chrome Extension for use with PeopleSoft systems. It has several features which will improve your effectiveness when working with PeopleSoft.

FA Learning Opportunities

PeopleSoft Financial Aid (FA) is a Campus Solutions-based tool to automate federal and institutional financial aid processing, helping institutions manage financial aid activity for applicants and students. FA handles tasks like application tracking, need analysis, award packaging, disbursement, and loan processing, reconciliation and ensuring federal compliance through reporting. 

The FA pillar includes Assessing Eligibility, Authorizing/Disbursing Aid, Awarding and Packaging/Repackaging, Direct Loans, Disbursement, Federal Applications, Pell, Return of Title IV Funds, Satisfactory Academic Progress, Self-Service, Work-Study.

The FA pillar also has custom pages built in ctcLink to handle the Washington state financial aid programs to include Washington College Grant, College Bound Scholarship, and state aid reporting.

Onboarding Training Manuals help new college staff in their training journey through ctcLink (PeopleSoft).

Learning a new software system can be challenging, so these documents provide new staff with information to locate, understand, and participate in the various ctcLink training and learning opportunities available.

ctcLink Training Overview

Instructor-Led Training and Work Sessions

Each ctcLink Pillar team holds topic-specific learning opportunities and work sessions to share important updates and specific content. This is a forum for our ctcLink users to share discoveries, issues, quirks, best practices, questions, business process options and whatever else might come up.

Financial Aid Trainings

Financial Aid (FA) trainings are typically held on Tuesdays from 9 to 11 a.m.  Dates may change and notifications are sent out to the ctclinkfinaidsupport listserv in advance. 

Fin Aid Training holds refresher training meetings to more intermediate and advanced training meetings, depending on the process and when it needs to be completed as it pertains to timing in the Aid Year.  We welcome the FA Community to attend these training meetings to offer your perspectives and experiences to your FA colleagues.

Financial Aid Work Sessions

Fin Aid Work Sessions, open to ALL end users, are generally held on the fourth Thursday of each month, from 1 to 3 p.m. Schedule may vary to accommodate holidays or other conflicts.

ctcLink Self-Paced Canvas Courses

All Canvas courses are self-paced. Each course includes a description and suggested list of who should enroll. 

Join a ctcLink Support eList (aka listserv)

ctcLink Customer Support sends updates, outage notices, changes to configuration, training and workshop opportunities, global and cross-pillar communications to colleges.

College subject matter experts (SMEs), PeopleSoft users/stakeholders can use the lists to ask  their college peers questions about how they do things in ctcLink, best practices, local training plans, and more.

Join today!

Please see the SERVICE NOTICE: Mailman Bug Troubleshooting for tips to subscribe.

ctcLink CONNECT Blog

ctcLink CONNECT, the weekly ctcLink Learning Opportunities & Support Roundup, includes ctcLink learning opportunities, ctcLink support updates, and news for Washington state community and technical college ctcLink users.

The news is sent to more than 40 eLists/listservs each week, but you may also subscribe directly.

Read past editions and subscribe to ctcLink CONNECT

Read back issues of the FA Weeklyish Bulletin.

Subscribe to the ctcLinkFinAidSupport to receive the FA Weeklyish Bulletin featuring Financial Aid hot topics, training tips, and tricks.

To subscribe

  • Send an email to ctcLinkFinAidSupport-subscribe@lists.ctc.edu
  • The Subject should be "Subscribe"
  • Once you receive a confirmation email, open it and click the link to confirm.
  • The list admin may need to approve you at this point, but once they do, you'll be subscribed

Contact

Questions? Contact the FIN AID Support Team