VCCS Student Financial Planning (SFP) Project

A Pilot of Oracle's Cloud-based Student Financial Planning Software

Project Mission

The Northern Virginia Community College of the Virginia Community Colleges (VCCS) is financially supporting the mission of enhancing the financial aid experience for students and administrators by piloting Oracle Student Financial Planning (SFP) across the following pilot colleges: ESCC, GCC, NVCC, PVCC, TCC, VPCC.

Project Vision

To transition to Oracle Student Financial Planning (SFP), a modern, cloud-based financial aid solution, and progress in VCCS's long-term vision of modernizing Student Information System (SIS) by moving to the cloud by 2034, aligning with the Accelerate Opportunity 2030 initiative to broaden access, improve affordability, and streamline operational processes.

Project Value

The SFP Pilot project will provide a transformative impact on both VCCS students and staff, by leverage automated workflows, creating an intuitive student experience, and enhancing compliance capabilities. SFP will free staff from labor-intensive tasks, reduce operational costs, and create a more supportive environment that encourages financial aid engagement.

Project Summary

The VCCS Student Financial Planning (SFP) Pilot Project aims to improve the financial aid experience by piloting Oracle Student Financial Planning (SFP) across six colleges—NVCC, ESCC, GCC, PVCC, TCC, and VPCC. The pilot will demonstrate the effectiveness of SFP in streamlining financial aid operations, enhancing student accessibility, and reducing manual processes. The project will integrate with PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.2 for the pilot colleges. PeopleSoft CS 9.2 Financial Aid will remain in place during the pilot for the non-pilot colleges. VCCS leadership will consider adoption of SFP across the remaining 17 VCCS colleges upon successful validation. The realized benefits from the pilot’s success will actualize a transformative opportunity for VCCS to provide all students a student-centered financial aid platform and streamline operational processes for our staff.

This project aligns with VCCS’s Accelerate Opportunity 2030 goals by improving FAFSA processing and file completion, financial aid accessibility, and operational efficiency. SFP will automate packaging and disbursement, repurpose financial aid staff workload, and improve regulatory compliance while offering students an intuitive, mobile-friendly self-service portal.

Project Time-line

SFP implementation will roll out to pilot colleges in phased releases spanning the calendar years 2025-2026, with the goal of going live for the Financial Aid Year 2026-2027. Piloting to small initial subset of colleges allows us to release, test and valid the desired benefits of SFP. Additionally, we will monitor and assess how well we have met our success criteria in accomplishing the mission and vision for the project.

Our Objectives

Oracle Student Financial Planner provides a host of of benefits to VCCS colleges. To realize those benefits, we have the following objectives in mind each step of the way, from project kick-off to launch, and every step in between.

Enhance Student Financial Aid Experience
Streamline Financial Aid Processing
Increase Financial Aid Staff Efficiency
Improve Compliance and Reporting

Project Governance

The governance of this project ensures that multiple perspectives are taken into consideration as decisions are made that impact the project's success and our ability to achieve our objectives. The SFP Project is governed by Executive and Steering Committees, as well as Project Directors, comprised of a mix of members from VCCS colleges and VCCS System Office.

Executive Project Sponsors/Executive Committee	Steering Committee Members	Project Directors
John Ferrari, VP of Finance, NVCC	Dr. Debbie Wyne, AVP Student Affairs, NVCC	Nicole Stewart, Assistant Vice Chancellor ITS Applications & Integrations, SO-ITS
Dennis Moynihan, Interim CIO, SO-ITS	Heather Hardiman, VP of Finance, TCC	Laurie Owens, Director of Financial Aid, SO-AWP
Dr. Felicia Ganther, Vice Chancellor, SO-AWP	Eve Belote, VP Finance, ESCC	Bridget Johnson, Assistant Vice President of Finance, NVCC
Dr. Tommy Wright, Vice Chancellor, SO-ADM/Fin	Dr. Tiffany Ray-Patterson, VP Student Services & Equity Adv., GCC
	Steve Carpenter, VP of Finance, VPCC
	Josh Fitzpatrick, VP IT/CIO, PVCC
	Dr. Chad Sartini, Director of Financial Aid, Veteran Affairs, & Records, VWCC (non-SFP pilot college)
	Megan Hartless, Director of Financial Aid, BRCC (non-SFP pilot college)

Explore More

VCCS Documentation & Additional Resources

Oracle SFP site
SFP Video for VCCS, by Oracle
SFP Google Drive (for SFP project team members only)
More to come!

Communication

Please reach out to Simone Biasuzzi, SFP Project Manager (sbiasuzzi@vccs.edu) if you have any questions.

Updating...