For more than 50 years, USA Funds has helped students and families prepare for higher education, enroll in college and successfully complete their postsecondary education programs. The non-profit organization has supported $247 billion in financial aid. Among the services that USA Funds provides is a financial literacy curriculum that helps college students understand how to finance their education and an online curriculum for college financial aid administrators to help them comply with the guidelines that govern federal student aid programs.
In January 2011, the organization launched its online USA Funds Life Skills training using SumTotal’s Extended Enterprise Learning solution. USA Funds Life Skills offers more than 30 lessons covering everything from how to pick the best area of study to budgeting and managing debt. Many schools require completion of one or more of these courses as part of the financial aid process. USA Funds uses the solution to generate weekly reports that let the schools know who is using the system.
“Students who complete the courses are better prepared to finish college and repay their school loans,” said Stephanie Patterson, LMS project manager at USA Funds. “We want students to be successful and the SumTotal Learning solution goes a long way toward helping us ensure that they are.”
Patterson said one of the reasons USA Funds selected SumTotal was its flexible deployment options. USA Funds’ previous LMS system required staff to spend a significant amount of time writing change orders and managing enhancements and upgrades. USA Funds was looking for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to reduce the amount of internal resources needed to maintain the LMS.
“SumTotal does all of the enhancements and testing. That has saved us an enormous amount of time,” Patterson said. “We appreciate the professional and organized way that SumTotal handles new releases. We also love the flexibility of the system for turning on or off features that are relevant to our users.”
Since USA Funds launched the learning site, approximately 32,000 users have completed 95,000 courses. The organization has an internal support staff available to answer learners’ questions, but they are only available during regular business hours. To fill in the gap, USA Funds enrolled in SumTotal’s End-User Support to provide round-the-clock assistance to students and schools that may be using the system anytime, from anywhere.
“Every one of our customers has a unique set of business needs, which is why we are working to consistently provide the most flexible and innovative human capital management solution on the market,” SumTotal’s CEO John Borgerding said. “We are excited to partner with USA Funds and help them deliver a best-in-class learning solution that improves efficiencies and frees up internal resources so they can focus on more strategic initiatives.”
For more information about SumTotal, visit the company’s website at www.sumtotalsystems.com. A case study about USA Funds’ project is also available.
About USA Funds
USA Funds® is a non-profit corporation that works to enhance postsecondary education preparedness, access and success by providing and supporting financial and other valued services. USA Funds was established in Indianapolis in 1960 to help families finance rising college costs. During the past 50 years, USA Funds has supported a total of $247 billion in financial aid for higher education. USA Funds has served approximately 22.4 million students and parents, as well as thousands of educational and financial institutions. For more information, visit www.usafunds.org.
About SumTotal Systems
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader of strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions that provide organizations with a new level of visibility to help make more informed business decisions and accelerate growth. Recognized by industry analysts as the most complete solution, SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system of record, from a single provider for improved business intelligence. The company offers customers of all sizes and industries the most flexibility and choice in deployment and configuration. We have increased the performance of the world’s largest organizations, including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN[ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL:AMWAY), and Seagate (NYSE: STX).
For more information, or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825 (US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com.
