University of California-Santa Barbara In the fall of 2016, things at University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) were not as serene as its picturesque coastal hills and cool stucco facades implied. The school had a good/bad problem: “We saw an unprecedented enrollment surge—way more students than ever before were coming to campus,” says Mike Miller, Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Services. To complicate the situation, he added, the overall UC student population is “needier and needier each year, in terms of requiring financial aid to meet the rising cost of school.” The campus reached a tipping point last fall when its outdated paper- based financial aid processes resulted in a crashed phone system and long lines of students that wrapped around the building. “

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