The Magellan Podcast

Financial aid decisions shape whether a student enrolls, starts a course, and stays on track to graduate. The offices and systems responsible for those decisions often work on different timelines. What would change if institutions treated the way students pay for college as part of the enrollment experience from the beginning?

This episode features Dr. Wayne Patton and Dr. Lee Beaumont of Magellan Learning Solutions and strategic partner Jen McMahon, founder and managing partner of Mac Insight Group, discussing the growing challenges colleges and universities face surrounding student financial aid, enrollment operations, compliance, and student support.

The talk explores how financial aid is a critical part of the student experience, enrollment funnel, retention strategy, institutional sustainability model, and how Magellan and Mac Insight have partnered to help institutions attain operational excellence in this crucial area.

In this episode

• Why online and adult learners need financial aid processes that fit multiple start dates and shorter terms.

• How FAFSA requirements, transfer history, borrowing limits, and summer terms can complicate a student's plan.

• Why employer tuition assistance, military benefits, private loans, and payment plans require coordination across campus offices.

• How a student's payment readiness can help teams spot potential enrollment melt before classes begin.

• What connected systems, documented processes, and a clear handoff from admissions to advising can do for the student experience.

About the guest

Jen McMahon is the founder and managing partner of Mac Insight Group, a higher education consulting firm that works with institutions on enrollment, financial aid, and student accounts.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Introduction and guests

• 01:41 — Mac Insight Group's approach to solving campus problems

• 05:29 — Changes and staffing pressure in financial aid

• 12:11 — Traditional students and online adult learners

• 19:40 — Making payment part of enrollment strategy

• 24:56 — Summer terms, transfer students, and borrowing limits

• 31:52 — Keeping leaders informed as requirements change

• 33:38 — Affordability and enrollment melt

• 38:11 — Payment readiness before a term begins

• 41:41 — Connected systems and a better student handoff

• 45:32 — Closing advice and the value of higher education

Learn more

• ⁠Mac Insight Group⁠

• ⁠Magellan Learning Solutions⁠

If your institution needs help with marketing and enrollment, curriculum services, academic operations, training and professional development, or a custom solution, connect with Magellan.

In this episode of the Magellan Podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Lee Beaumont, Vice President of Enrollment and Marketing at Magellan, to introduce a powerful new service within our Lead Optimization portfolio: Magellan’s Lead Lifeline.

Lead Lifeline is designed to help institutions rescue lost leads, re-engage student inquiries, and move them back on course toward enrollment through timely follow-up and personalized outreach.

Learn more about Magellan's Lead Lifeline

In the episode, the group discusses:

• What is lead optimization?

• The key challenges colleges face and why do so many struggle with lead follow-up?

• Magellan's lead optimization is rapid, personalized, application-guided, marketing-aligned, scalable, and cost-efficient.

• Why does this matter?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. The podcast was recorded by, produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Kentucky State University (KSU) and Magellan Learning Solutions are proud to announce the release of a new podcast episode titled “Transforming an Institution: The Collaborative Journey of Kentucky State University and Magellan Learning Solutions.” The episode, recorded on the beautiful campus of Kentucky State University, chronicles a powerful and strategic partnership that is reshaping the future of online education at one of the nation’s most historic HBCUs.

This in-depth conversation features KSU’s President, Dr. Koffi C. Akakpo, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Michael D. Dailey, Vice Provost for Student Affairs, Dr. Stephanie Mayberry, and Director of Marketing & Public Relations Jessica Holman. They are joined by the leadership team from Magellan Learning Solutions, including Cofounder and CEO Dr. Wayne Patton, President and COO Aaron Traphagen, Chief Business Development Officer Jimmy Queen, Vice President of Marketing & Enrollment Dr. Lee Beaumont, and Associate Vice President for Online Education Mike Floyd.

• Read the press release
• Learn More About KYSU Online Programs

In the episode, the group discusses:

• The vision behind KSU’s shift to prioritize online learning
• The role of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education in funding and supporting the initiative
• The services Magellan provided, from curriculum development to student support infrastructure
• Real-world data showing the early success of the partnership
• Lessons learned and a shared roadmap for future impact

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. The podcast was recorded by Aaron Traphagen, and produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Welcome back to The Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Students learn better when they engage with course materials as whole people—thinking, feeling, culturally rich individuals. In the online classroom in particular, though, achieving this sort of affective engagement can be challenging. Designing online curriculum to create affective engagement may take effort, but it pays dividends, not only in student learning outcomes but in multiple other areas. Affectively aware courses, for example, honor the diversity of experiences that students bring to the online classroom, and as that happens, students in the group as a whole have an opportunity to increase their cultural awareness, to learn ways to communicate with others who are not like them, and to self-reflect on their own positions and ideas.

For today’s podcast, which follows our white paper “Affective Learning in the Online Classroom,” we welcome Dr. Gena Southall, Associate Vice President for Online Education at Magellan, to discuss ways to create affective engagement online. Gena brings decades of experience as an educator, both residentially and online, and as an administrator within teacher education programs. Magellan Partner Emily Heady will join her in this conversation.

Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"Affective Learning in the Online Classroom"

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What is affective learning? Is it just finding a way to make learning experiences more emotional?
2. One of the points we make in the white paper is that affective learning is good for inclusion and for welcoming all kinds of different learners into the process. How does this work, and why does it matter?
3. What are some practical ways we can create affectively engaged online learning experiences?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

Magellan Team in this podcast includes Dr. Emily W. Heady and Dr. Gena Southall. The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. Podcast recorded, produced, and edited by Adam Ranck.

Recommended Resources

• Doubet, K. (2022). The flexibly grouped classroom: How to Organize Learning for Equity and Growth. ASCD.

Welcome back to The Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

In today’s podcast, Magellan’s partners discuss how the recent merger between Magellan and SWAY Communication, which provides a full suite of marketing, communication, and enrollment services, benefits clients and opens up new lanes of service. Stay tuned to learn what’s happening at Magellan—or just to listen in on a robust conversation with five senior-level administrators about how to approach enrollment in today’s online environment.

Schools who want to grow their enrollment footprint need to present a whole package to prospective and current students, starting from the earliest phases of marketing their programs, to the application and acceptance process, to registering for classes, to navigating student services throughout their degree. Magellan has supported clients at all phases of the enrollment funnel and student life cycle—and we’re now able to do it better.

Podcast Outline:

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, marketing and enrollment, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

Magellan Team includes Dr. Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, Dr. Emily W. Heady, Jimmy Queen, and Jay Spencer. The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. Podcast recorded, produced, and edited by Adam Ranck.

Welcome back to The Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

In today’s episode, the team interviews Dr. Jennifer Green, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, as a part of our “Managing Boundaries, Managing Change” Leadership Interview series. Jennifer oversees admissions, the registrar’s office, financial aid, first-year experience, student employment, and a variety of student support offices.

If there’s one constant in our educational environment, it’s change. Managing change provides a unique set of challenges for leaders, who have to understand what needs to be changed and plot out a course for how that change should occur. Change is particularly difficult because it touches something most of us hold near and dear—our comfortable lives. Join the Magellan team, and guest Jennifer Green, as they discuss ways in which leaders have navigated changes at their institutions in the past.

• Read the White Paper on this topic by Dr. Emily W. Heady: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Managing Boundaries, Managing Change

• Listen to Part 1 of our last podcast series: ⁠⁠How to Talk About Higher Education⁠⁠

• Listen to our podcast on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Online Learning Ecosystems⁠⁠⁠⁠

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. Can you describe a change you either led or were part of that went well? What characterized it?
2. How about a change that proved challenging? What were the hard parts, and what can we learn from them?
3. As you look at the higher ed landscape now, what coming changes do you see that we’re going to need to be ready to tackle?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Show Credits

Magellan Team includes Dr. Wayne Patton, Aaron Traphagen, and Dr. Emily W. Heady. The podcast theme was written and recorded by Dr. Wayne Patton. Podcast produced and edited by Adam Ranck.

Colleges cannot escape the fact that they are businesses: they offer a “product” that they need to “sell” to consumers. Of course, education and students are not “products” and “consumers” in the same way that people shopping at the grocery store are! So what’s at stake in embracing or questioning the idea that higher education is a marketplace?

This is part 5 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Parts 1-4 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem," "culture," "machine," and "institution." This is the final episode of this series.

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. In what ways is higher education a marketplace?

2. What are the downsides of thinking of higher ed as a marketplace?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

Language about the “institution” of higher education is unavoidable—so much so that individual campuses refer to themselves as such. But what does this mean? What’s at stake in a campus thinking of itself in these terms?

This is part 4 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1-3 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem," "culture," and "machine." In the next and last episode, we will discuss Higher Education as a marketplace.

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What are the implications of higher education being an “institution”?

2. Is higher ed in step or out of step with other social institutions, such as the government, churches, etc.?

3. What does a leader in an institutional culture need to do?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

No one likes to refer to higher education as a machine or a factory, though it is true that many major players in the higher ed sphere have a great number of machine-like processes in place. These help them to recruit and enroll students, identify students who may not retain, and increase efficiency in many areas of campus operations. What does it mean when a university embraces its machine-like qualities? Join us for a discussion.

This is part 3 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1 & 2 covered Higher Ed as an "ecosystem" and "culture." In further episodes, we will discuss Higher Education as a an institution and a marketplace.

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. What are some of the machine-like elements of higher education?

2. What are some of the gains and losses that a campus that embraces its mechanisms will face?

3. What are the implications for leaders in higher ed machines?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic:

“Culture” may be understood as all the things people don’t think about but have internalized as part of “the way things are.” One of the roles higher education plays is in helping people to adapt to and hold a good understanding of culture—the campus, the discipline of study, and society more broadly. Join us as we discuss the implications of understanding higher education as a culture.

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on "How to Talk About Higher Education." Part 1 included an introduction and discussion on Higher Education as an "ecosystem." In further episodes, we will discuss Higher Education as a machine, an institution, and a marketplace.

Podcast Topics, Questions, and Show Notes:

1. When we talk about the “culture of higher ed,” what are some of the sorts of things we mean?

2. What are some ways we see the “higher ed as culture” discussion taking shape today?

3. What should a leader in a higher ed culture attend to?

If you or your school is looking for help with RSI, curriculum or course development, operational services, training, or professional development, think Magellan; our team would love to help. Reach out to us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thinkmagellan.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. Thank you for joining us on the Magellan Podcast: Navigating Education in the 21st Century.

Recommended Articles and Books on this Topic: