Holding Education’s Purse Strings

SOM alumna approaches administering the DOE’s largest division with poise and dedication

By Amy Biderman

Theresa Shaw, BS Business Administration ’80, is proof positive that an entering freshman’s academic path can turn with the pages of the calendar.

“My first love was science,” she says, noting that she planned to be a marine biologist. “But I woke up one day and decided to be a business major. I wanted to go out into the business world.”

Shaw’s involvement with Greek life at Mason was instrumental in her decision to study business. Her membership in Chi Omega sorority led to a great deal of work in the community.

“The interaction is what started me in management and leadership,” she says, adding that she also had a leadership role in the Panhellenic Council.

 Shaw served in another leadership position at Mason as one of the first resident advisors in the student apartments behind SUB I when they opened in 1978. She says the job was difficult but fun. “I am not very tall, and sometimes telling a group of six-foot-tall guys who had been partying all night to quiet down was a little challenging, but I usually managed to find a way to settle them down.”

Looking back on her academic life, Shaw fondly remembers the tutelage of Hale Tongren, who is now professor emeritus of marketing.

“Students feared and revered him,” she says. “He was an incredible instructor and had a major influence on me. I can cite things that I learned in his classes more than 20 years ago.” 

After graduation, Shaw began her career at Sallie Mae, one of the largest private student loan providers in the country. “I grew up there,” she says. Shaw worked her way up the ranks, advancing to senior vice president and chief information officer by 1999. Then in 2000, she left Sallie Mae to serve as executive vice president and chief operating officer of a start-up technology firm, eNumerate Solutions Inc., in McLean, Virginia. In 2002, she moved to the U.S. Department of Education and into public service.

Today, Shaw is the chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid Office where she is chief administrator of the Title IV federal student loan and grant programs. This year, the department projects that 10 million people will receive approximately $73 billion in federal financial aid through 6,200 postsecondary institutions; 3,400 lenders; and 35 guarantee associations.

 “I never expected to go into government,” Shaw says. “But I thought I could help out and viewed it as a challenge.” 

Serving as the administrator of the Department of Education’s largest division is not your typical day job, but Shaw says her husband Bill, BA Psychology ’80; daughter Kendall, a Mason freshman; and son Thomas, a high school freshman, are accustomed to the demands of her work schedule.

“It’s hard from time to time, trying to be all things to all people,” she acknowledges, “but challenging jobs require dedication and effort—they’re not 9 to 5.”

But Shaw believes there has to be a point where a person just does not compromise. “My point is my kids,” she says. “I’m there for them when they need me.” In fact, Shaw has never missed one of Kendall’s or Thomas’s school events.

Shaw speaks proudly of her daughter’s choice to study at Mason. “George Mason did a fine job by me.  I’m proud to have gone there, and I’m proud that my daughter is going there.”

And for the growing number of Mason alumni who are facing the daunting prospect of financing their children’s college education, Shaw has some simple advice: fill out the financial aid applications.

“Don’t leap to the conclusion that [your children] won’t qualify for federal aid,” she says. “We hate for people not to go to school because they didn’t think they were eligible for financial aid.”

Theresa Shaw