Alex Skarr M.A. FAAC®

Alexander Skarr has vast and varied experience in the financial aid field. His experiences include working at a state agency providing information to make college accessible and affordable as well as in Financial Aid roles at large state institutions, small private institutions, and regional state universities. As a senior associate consultant, he assists colleges and universities with interim staffing and projects.

His career began as a community outreach worker for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission counseling high school students and their families regarding college access. He held counselor positions at Quincy University, Georgia State University, and Clayton State University where he was promoted to Assistant Director of Financial Aid. As an Assistant Director of Financial Aid, Alexander oversaw the front-end and compliance operations of the Financial Aid office. This included application processing, verification, packaging, customer service, awarding foundation scholarships, professional judgements, administration of the Federal Work-Study program, and NCAA financial aid compliance.

Some of Alexander’s notable accomplishments include providing FAFSA completion training for high school counselors, working with NCAA financial aid rules and regulations to ensure compliance for over 600 student-athletes, and working with Georgia State’s “Success Academy” student population to provide presentations and financial aid education training. He was appointed to the NASFAA Staffing and Benchmarking Task Force for 2022-23 and had a book review published by NASFAA in 2022.

Alexander is proficient in both PowerFAIDS and Ellucian Banner for awarding, originating, and disbursing student funds. He is a skilled PowerFAIDS technical user with experience in designing PIT rules, custom data fields, selection sets, and custom reports, as well as creating auto-packaging formulas. He also has experience in Jenzabar, Slate, PowerCAMPUS, Salesforce, along with the U.S. Department of Education’s suite of applications and websites for administering Federal Student Aid. He is an experienced public speaker having presented at the Southern Sociological Society annual conference, The National Conference for Undergraduate Research, as well as the Illinois Student Assistance Commission’s 2023 FAFSA symposium.

Alexander is a current member of NASFAA, and a former member of GASFAA, ILASFAA, MASFAA, and SASFAA. Alexander also holds 10 NASFAA professional credentials.

Alexander received his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology/Anthropology and Political Science, and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois in Springfield He is currently working on his Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration at the University of West Georgia.