USA Funds Staff Profile: A Commitment to Higher-Education Access

USA Funds^® Customer-Relations Manager Vicky Keller’s personal experience as a nontraditional student searching for a way to pay for college ignited a passion for spreading the word about the importance of financial aid.

When Keller began her postsecondary-education career, at Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla., staff at the college instructed her to fill out a form that was unfamiliar to her — a Free Application for Federal Student Aid. She thought nothing further about that form she’d completed — until she learned that she qualified for aid from the federal government to attend school.

Until that time, Keller had no idea that such aid was available to her.

Among the aid for which she was qualified was Federal Work-Study, which landed her a position in the school’s financial-aid office. The position provided her the perfect venue for making sure other students knew their financial-aid options. Keller began doing outreach work in the community to spread the word about aid for higher education.

“I knew I couldn’t be the only one who didn’t know about this,” she says.

The Chicago native had a background in health-services administration and received an associate degree from Valencia Community College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida in that discipline. Along the way, however, she continued her outreach work educating the community about financial aid.

Keller’s work in the financial-aid community continues to this day. A USA Funds customer-relations manager since 2003, she has more than a decade of experience in higher-education financial aid and admissions.

In her role at USA Funds, Keller is responsible for determining customer needs and monitoring customer satisfaction with education-loan service in the Southeast, particularly in Mississippi and Florida. Mississippi is one of eight states that USA Funds serves as designated guarantor of federal education loans. Florida also is a key state in which USA Funds offers many value-added resources.

Keller, who is based in the Orlando, Fla., area, convenes advisory councils to gather input about how USA Funds can best serve its school- and lender-customers in her region. She also helps identify philanthropic initiatives to which USA Funds can lend its support.

“USA Funds’ mission — enhancing higher-education preparedness, access and success — is in line with my passion,” Keller says. “I enjoy helping to make financial-aid administrators’ lives easier, and I also enjoy helping to make a difference in the community and in the lives of students and their families.”

Keller also holds a master’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, with a concentration on issues of social concern, from the University of Central Florida, and hopes one day to pursue a doctoral degree in educational leadership. She devotes most of her free time to her family, including two granddaughters.