FAFSA Completion Challenge Archives

Sambat: Helping Every Single Student, No Matter How Long It Takes

Posted on November 22, 2019December 24, 2019 by Kelly Mae Ross

City: West Valley City, Utah
Title: College Access Advisor, Hunter High School

Sambat Kim, an alumnus of Hunter High School in West Valley City, returned to his alma mater to help more students pursue their educational goals after completing high school. To increase FAFSA completion among its students, Hunter High School partnered with the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority, which was recently recognized in the National College Access Network’s 2018-2019 FAFSA Completion Challenge. Sambat spoke with the Kresge Foundation and shared more about his experiences working with fellow colleagues to educate students and families about college grant and scholarship opportunities.

Kresge: Why is it important for your community to boost FAFSA completion? What strategies do you use to get the word out about the FAFSA?

Sambat: In our communication with students and parents, we try to make it clear that completing the FAFSA will help pay for school, and in turn, open more educational doors. It’s not simply about the college applications, it’s about how to pay for college as well. We use a few strategies. We hold FAFSA nights, talk to seniors during college and career planning sessions, and I have one-on-one meetings with each senior. I also collaborate with my faculty and staff colleagues so they can help me get the word out and get everyone around the school talking about FAFSA.

In the West Valley City community, sometimes we can have a hard time engaging parents. Many of our parents work two or three jobs so it’s hard for them to come out during the evening. But last year we had great parent engagement. Almost 100 students attended with their parents! It was a crazy busy night, but we had a lot of success with helping students complete their FAFSAs.

Kresge: What brought you to this work, Sambat?

Sambat: I’m a Hunter High alumnus and during my senior year I got a lot of help from my teachers, college advisors, and counselors. Back then, the FAFSA didn’t open until January 1st. It was difficult to focus on high school, navigate college applications, and figure out how to pay for college. But I got a lot of help. In my senior year I applied to five colleges and for 70 scholarships. Completing the FAFSA was critical. And at the end of my senior year I got a full-ride scholarship to my dream school. Several years later, I graduated from college debt-free. And because of my personal experience, I wanted to come back to my community to tell students, not only my success story, but how to overcome challenges, and show that it’s possible to go to college and graduate debt- free. I want students to know that it’s possible, and that there are a lot of resources and people to help.

When you grow up in low-income communities, where people don’t really talk more about higher education, seeing someone from your school community get scholarships and grants can give students hope that they can achieve their goals as well.

Kresge: What is one challenge you face in motivating students? Motivating parents?

Sambat: I’m pretty sure every school, every community nationwide has some challenges. Sometimes I have a parent that doesn’t want to provide their tax information. Or I might have parents who are undocumented, and even though their students are citizens, they are reluctant to provide their information. I not only try talking to parents individually, I talk to scholarship donors and students, and try to find a way to break down barriers, just really helping people understand the FAFSA completion process. I don’t care how much time it takes for me to help one student. I don’t want money to be a burden or the reason a student cannot go to college. If they don’t complete the FAFSA, they might miss out on several scholarship opportunities, including the Utah Promise Scholarship. Just one application – the FAFSA – can mean more college opportunities.

Kresge: Is there a student or family experience that stands out in terms of helping with FAFSA completion?

Sambat: Every student has a different situation, but one of my students stands out. One of my students is homeless. Together with our counseling team, and our school social worker, we helped her every step of the way with applying to colleges and completing the FAFSA. She received a full Pell Grant and now attends college. When a student completes the FAFSA, the student is identified as dependent or independent. This student did not require any financial information from a parent or guardian and could complete the FAFSA on her own.

Kresge: Do you have any advice for fellow counselors or coaches trying to help boost FAFSA completion?

Sambat: I work with a lot of seniors with different situations. My advice? Make every effort to speak to students individually about their educational dreams and help them explore opportunities. And even though their plan may not be to go to college right away, help them complete the FAFSA just in case their plans change. If they complete the FAFSA, they’re less likely to miss important scholarship deadlines.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Utah Promise Scholarship is a need-based, last-dollar scholarship. It covers tuition and fees for up to two years at Utah’s public colleges and universities as well as the state’s public technical colleges for qualifying students. The scholarship is open to both recent high school graduates and adult learners who: 1) have a high school diploma or equivalent, 2) have not previously earned a postsecondary degree, 3) are Utah residents, 4) have demonstrated financial need, and 5) accept all other forms of financial aid offered, according to the Utah System of Higher Education website.

When filing the FAFSA, students must indicate whether they are dependent or independent from their parents. According to the Federal Student Aid website: “A dependent student is assumed to have the support of parents, so the parents’ information has to be assessed along with the student’s, in order to get a full picture of the family’s financial strength.” The 2020-21 FAFSA asks 10 questions to determine a student’s dependency status. Students are considered independent if they meet criteria such as being married, being a veteran of the U.S. armed forces, or being an “unaccompanied youth who is homeless.”

Leslie: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help

Posted on October 29, 2019December 24, 2019 by Kelly Mae Ross

City: Mesa, Arizona
Title: Peer Coach, Dobson High School

Leslie Flores is a 2019 graduate of Dobson High School in Mesa, Arizona, where she served as a FAFSA peer coach during the 2018-2019 school year. Dobson High School is in the Mesa Public Schools district, which recently won the National College Access Network’s 2018-2019 FAFSA Completion Challenge. Leslie, who now studies business entrepreneurship at Arizona State University, spoke with the Kresge Foundation and shared more about her experiences helping students and families complete the FAFSA and inspiring more students to pursue their dreams of a college education.

Kresge: Why is it important for your community at Dobson High School and in Mesa to increase FAFSA completion?

Leslie: It’s simple. More FAFSAs completed means more students in need receiving financial aid and more people enrolling in college. For our community specifically, we had a lot of students from low-income households who didn’t think college was even a possibility, but then find out they’re able to use FAFSA [federal and state aid] money to help with college costs. When I worked with fellow students, it was awesome to see their faces light up when they learned they received $1,000, $3,000 or even the top grant amounts. They instantly started thinking more about their goals. It’s imperative for our generation to pursue a college education. We can never have enough education because we never stop learning.

Kresge: From your experience, what is the most effective strategy in boosting FAFSA completion among your peers?

Leslie: Face-to-face communication helped to build bonds with students. Those bonds helped them feel more comfortable sharing personal information, which then helped us understand how to help them. All FAFSA peer coaches, there were five of us, were close in age to the students with whom we worked. As peer coaches, we also had to complete our own FAFSA applications. That was helpful because we had the experience of going through the application process. Sharing more about our own personal experience completing the FAFSA helped us address questions about the process.

We also created some social media accounts and an email address specifically for our Dobson FAFSA group. Parents and students emailed us questions or asked if they could meet up to talk through their questions.

Social media plays such a big part in our world, so the social media amplification really helped a lot. We used Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, but Snapchat was our main platform. All five peer coaches had access to the Snapchat account and we tried to answer questions as often as possible, even when we were not at school. For example, if a student was working on their FAFSA late at night, they could just send us a quick Snapchat, and we would answer the question and try to help them along the way.

Kresge: What did you enjoy most about helping your peers and families with the FAFSA completion process?

Leslie: I really enjoyed seeing how surprised people were, how happy parents were, to see that going to college could be a possibility for their student, and that they weren’t looking at huge amounts of debt, particularly for Mesa Community College . If I’m not mistaken, if a student received the full Pell Grant amount, that pretty much covered the entire Mesa Community College tuition for one year. Before completing the FAFSA, some students were setting their sights on going straight to the workforce after high school. Just completing the FAFSA was a small part in paving new pathways for many of my peers.

Social media plays such a big part in our world, so the social media amplification really helped a lot.

And then for me personally, it was rewarding to translate helpful info about the FAFSA into Spanish. When we hosted FAFSA nights, me and another peer counselor who spoke Spanish would translate info for Spanish-speaking families. Dobson High School has a large Spanish-speaking community. It was really rewarding to help parents feel comfortable about asking questions directly.

Kresge: What is one challenge you faced while working to boost FAFSA completion rates, and how did you overcome it?

Leslie: As soon as the FAFSA becomes available in October there are students and parents who are super motivated. But there are also students who simply were not interested in completing it for any number of reasons. Our biggest challenge was motivating those students. Some would say, ‘I don’t see a point to it, I’m not going to do it, it’s a waste of my time, it’s too much time and energy, I don’t want to get my parents’ tax information, or I don’t want to make them an FSA ID.’ Those responses and situations were frustrating, and some were understandable. To address this, we tried to make people feel comfortable and understand that the process was not that difficult.

As peer coaches, our job was to aid these students. I, along with another peer coach, used the last hour of the school day as an unofficial official FAFSA hour. We’d meet with students who were having trouble completing the FAFSA and work with them over time, sometime over days or even weeks, instead of having to do it in just one sitting.

Kresge: Is there a standout story or interaction with a student that was particularly meaningful to you?

Leslie: One student comes to mind. We’ve known each other for many years. When she learned I was a peer coach, she approached me in class and said she didn’t want to talk to the counselors. But because she knew me well and saw the work I did around campus as a peer coach, she felt comfortable sharing with me that her parents were not citizens. And because they were not citizens, they didn’t have Social Security numbers, but they filed taxes as residents. This student was worried because she wanted to go to college and she wanted to complete the FAFSA application, but saw that it asked for parents’ Social Security numbers.

As a peer coach, many of these situations presented new learning experiences. We had to look up these answers or ask counselors for help. After doing some research, together we learned that the student is the only one who needs to provide a Social Security number. And for her parents, we could manually enter their tax information, and put in zeros for the Social Security numbers.

This interaction stood out because she felt comfortable working with me. It was a learning experience for both of us, and she was super patient with me. In the end, instead of electronically filing her FAFSA, we had to print it, have her parents sign it, then mail it.

Three weeks later she found me again on campus and she gave me the biggest hug. She told me she was so grateful that she talked to me because she received the maximum Pell Grant! Now she was going to go to college. Her parents were worried because although they were residents, it was a scary time for them to even do anything with the government. It was rewarding to see that she was happy, her parents were happy, and they were grateful. Later, throughout the year, when I met a student in that same situation, I knew how to help them.

Kresge: Do you have any advice that you would share with the next group of peer coaches that’s working at Dobson or elsewhere in the district or even the country?

Leslie: I would tell future peer coaches this: do your research and don’t give up. As a peer coach, we’re the ones who help students most with the FAFSA completion process. For some situations I had to do research on the FAFSA site or ask for help.

By ‘don’t give up,’ I mean some situations are going to be tough. Some students are going to be very unmotivated, but you have to push through it and look at the bigger picture because you’re not just doing it as the title of peer coach or just so Mesa has the highest completion rates. That shouldn’t be the reason. It should be so one more student can go to college, one more student is confident that they’re going to be able to make something of themselves, and that they’re going to make their family proud. This is about each student, not just the numbers, in the district and in the nation.

Kresge: What concrete advice do you have for students who don’t know where to begin?

Leslie: Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Just take everything one step at a time. And, believe! Believe that you’ll be able to get some sort of financial aid and that it can help you pursue your college dreams.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2018-2019, the cost of tuition and fees at Mesa Community College for an in-state resident was $2,070 for a full-time student, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. The maximum Pell Grant award for that same time period was $6,095.

According to the office of Federal Student Aid, if a student’s parents do not have Social Security Number, they must enter 000-00-0000 when the FAFSA asks for this information. Also, parents without Social Security numbers will have to sign a printed version of the FAFSA (instead of signing electronically), as was the case with the student Leslie Flores worked with.

5 Cities Receive Awards for 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge Efforts

Posted on September 24, 2019 by Kelly Mae Ross

By Sara Melnick, Deputy Director, National College Access Network

The National College Access Network announced the winners of the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge last week at the 2019 NCAN National Conference Indianapolis. Out of the more than two dozen U.S. cities that participated in the Challenge, five received awards for their outstanding efforts.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) effectively serves as the gateway to higher education for millions of students each academic year. But the complex and extensive nature of the FAFSA deters some students from applying for the financial aid for which they would otherwise qualify.

In an effort to boost FAFSA completion rates across the country, NCAN selected 25 U.S. cities to receive a grant of up to $40,000 each for the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge. This work was led by a mix of school districts, postsecondary institutions, community-based organizations, and foundations.

NCAN challenged each of the grant recipients to increase their FAFSA completion rates by at least 5 percentage points for the graduating high school class of 2019. In an effort to address equity gaps, this Challenge specifically focused on cities with baseline FAFSA completion rates below the national average.

This project was generously funded by The Kresge Foundation and Ascendium Education Group.

Grand Prize – Mesa Public Schools (Mesa, AZ)

The grand prize winner of the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge is Arizona’s Mesa Public Schools.

Mesa implemented several creative strategies to help more of its students file the FAFSA. The district used student-level completion data to strategically target non-completers and invite them to smaller, more intimate FAFSA completion events and one-on-one sessions. Mesa also implemented a campaign to clarify and disseminate information about FAFSA completion, spreading the word though social and traditional media, a website, flyers, and the school’s messaging system.

But a major key to the district’s success was its use of peer coaches. These coaches were recruited by school staff to spread the word among their peers about FASFA completion, its importance, and where to get help with the financial aid application process. The coaches received extensive training and used data to target their peers who had not completed the FAFSA. They supported FAFSA completion events at their high schools, led information sessions at lunch, and used social media to get the word out.

As the grand prize winner, Mesa Public Schools received $100,000 to continue its FAFSA completion efforts.

First Runner-up – Denton Independent School District (Denton, TX)

Denton ISD also took a multi-pronged approach to its FAFSA completion work. Strong support from the district superintendent helped generate more buy-in for the work. And the district’s director of counseling was the point person for all FAFSA-related activities, making it easier to coordinate efforts throughout the schools. Denton provided each school a small sub-grant to spend on activities to boost FAFSA completion. These funds were often used for student incentives and prizes.

Another key to Denton’s success was to use grant dollars to hire a FAFSA expert to complement the work of the school counselors. This FAFSA expert had the knowledge and, more importantly, the time to address complex FAFSA situations and work one-on-one with students and families in a non-threatening environment. The school district deemed the work of the FAFSA expert so important that it will to continue to pay their salary for another school year.

As the first runner-up, Denton ISD received $25,000 to continue its FAFSA completion work.

Award for Excellence in Overcoming Barriers and Perseverance – Rochester Education Foundation (Rochester, NY)

Rochester was one of the only sites that did not have access to student-level FASFA completion data, despite the district’s best efforts to obtain these data from the state. On top of that, two partners that would have expanded the Rochester Education Foundation’s ability to help hard-to-reach students with FAFSA completion were unable to participate in the project.

But with these lemons, the Rochester Education Foundation (REF) made lemonade. Here are just a few ways the site demonstrated perseverance in the face of significant obstacles:

Rochester built a cadre of counselors who became personally invested in this work.
REF implemented many more school-based FAFSA completion events than originally planned (15), in addition to six community-based events.
REF capitalized on the strong existing relationships with institutions of higher education and added new partners during the year. These higher ed partners provided in-school advising and trained volunteers; one institution even provided on-the-spot admissions decisions.

In the end, REF estimates that 47% of all FAFSA completions in Rochester happened at one of its events.

As the recipient of the Overcome Barriers and Perseverance award, Rochester Education Foundation received $10,000 to support future FAFSA completion work.

Award for Excellence in Community-Based Leadership – Citizens for Educational Excellence (Corpus Christi, TX)

Citizens for Educational Excellence (CEE) is a local intermediary organization that is also the hub of several collaborative efforts in the area that focus on equity in postsecondary access, and workforce development.

One of CEE’s major accomplishments during the Challenge was facilitating deeper relationships between local postsecondary institutions and the school district, as well as formalizing CEE’s partnership with the school district. CEE had provided support to the schools around FAFSA completion in the past, but this grant facilitated deeper involvement with counselors, who came to appreciate that CCE was there to support them (and not to create extra work).

Other activities implemented as part of this project included monthly competitions and awards for schools with the highest completion rates in the district; using traditional and social media to disseminate information about the FAFSA to the entire community; awarding graduation cords to students who completed the FAFSA; and engaging high school students to disseminate information about the FAFSA to their peers.

As the winner of the Community-Based Leadership award, CEE received $10,000 to continue its FAFSA completion efforts.

Award for Excellence in Training and Professional Development – Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority (West Valley City, UT)

The Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority (UHEAA) is a state agency that has access to student-level FAFSA completion information and already does a great deal of outreach on FAFSA completion statewide. The challenge UHEAA faces throughout the state is that a fair number of high school seniors do not historically go right on to a postsecondary institution after graduation.

UHEAA used a variety of strategies to increase FAFSA completion rates, including outreach to students through social media and texting, engaging near-peers through the statewide advising corps, and providing student-level data to counselors and advising corps members so they could target non-completers through small group and one-on-one assistance. The organization enjoyed a strong partnership with local postsecondary institutions and the school district, and UHEAA provided all partners with regular communication that included project updates and progress, as well as information on relevant partner resources.

UHEAA also used its robust toolbox of training resources (videos, webinars, etc.) to train counselors and college access professionals on why and how to complete the FAFSA. The organization provided training to administrators, counselors, and teachers throughout the grant period. Counselors and college access personnel were trained to assist students through most straightforward FAFSA completion scenarios, but they also had access to help when they encountered more challenging situations.

As the recipient of the Training and Professional Development award, UHEAA received $10,000 to support future FAFSA completion work.

All five award-winning FAFSA Completion Challenge sites were actively engaged in the project and with NCAN throughout the grant year. They presented on their experiences during webinars, were active participants in the webinars when they weren’t presenting, agreed to be interviewed by evaluators and to share their stories for blog posts, and were always willing to offer insights and their challenges when asked.

The sites’ willingness to share best practices helped grow the power of the Challenge grants by spreading solutions to other cities around the country.

Read more about the Challenge on the Kresge Foundation website.

How Schools Engage Students to Help Increase FAFSA Completion

Posted on April 24, 2019April 24, 2019 by Kelly Mae Ross

By ASA Research

Last year, the National College Access Network selected 25 U.S. cities to participate in the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge. Through this project, generously funded by The Kresge Foundation and Ascendium Education Group, NCAN challenges each of the grant recipient cities to increase their FAFSA completion rates by at least 5 percentage points for the graduating high school class of 2019. In an effort to address equity gaps, this challenge specifically focuses on cities with current FAFSA completion rates below the national average.

ASA Research, the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge project evaluator, is monitoring the 25 sites’ activities and results throughout the grant and highlighting strategies of interest.

Through focus groups and interviews, we have heard much interest and excitement around peer strategies, whereby students provide encouragement or assistance to help other students complete the FAFSA. In some cases, peers are competing within or between schools and are offered financial incentives or rewards.

This blog post profiles various peer strategies employed by sites to provide information about how to implement peer strategies locally.

The Power of Peers

Several grantee sites credit peers as having a positive influence on FAFSA completion rates. For example:

Michael Garcia, director of opportunity and achievement at Mesa Public Schools (the site lead for Mesa, AZ) shared that he believes this strategy has been effective because students appreciate hearing about the FAFSA from their peers, who can “communicate with them on the same level.” He believes Mesa’s peer coaches are not only motivated by monetary rewards but also by “doing good and providing an important service” to help members of the community access college.
Sarah Piwinski, director of data management and analysis, Tri-County Cradle to Career Collaborative, the Charleston, SC lead, shared that it is encouraging for students to hear from their peers who completed the FAFSA, some of whom already have financial aid offers – this demonstrates to students not only the process but also the results.

Some examples of peer engagement models follow.

Ambassadors

Recruiting student ambassadors to motivate other students to complete the FAFSA seems to be the most common peer model among grantee sites. Some examples include:

Fort Wayne: Counselors nominated five FAFSA ambassadors from each school. These students are typically seniors who are actively involved in student groups and hold leadership positions. Ambassadors motivate their peers to complete the FAFSA and are incentivized through both between and within-school competitions and rewards such as gift cards.
San Diego: Schools are working with their associated student boards to lead a completion competition between schools of the same size. Each of their 18 schools has five student ambassadors who talk to students at lunch and encourage them to complete the FAFSA.
Baltimore: Counselors selected one student in each school to serve as a FAFSA ambassador. These students make classroom presentations to help spread the word about FAFSA completion.

Paid Peer Coaches

Mesa has 24 peer coaches (four at each school) who receive a stipend and scholarship incentive for encouraging and helping peers to take specific steps to complete the FAFSA. Mesa modeled its strategy in part after Phoenix’s peer model. (Phoenix was a 2016-17 FAFSA Completion Challenge grantee.) Additional details follow:

Selection and training: Counseling teams identified students – typically, seniors planning to attend college who are “influencers” in their peer groups and/or strong communicators, savvy with social media and, preferably, multilingual. Nominees submitted brief YouTube video applications, and those selected attend events and monthly trainings throughout the year.
Role: Peer coaches help students create FSA IDs, but do not handle any financially sensitive information. In cases where a peer coach cannot answer a question or encounters a difficult situation, the student/family is referred to the site partners, including the local college access network.
Rewards: In addition to a stipend, the site awards $25 gift card incentives to peer coaches who reach specific milestones (see below):

Mesa’s 5 Milestones for Peer Coach Incentives

1. Make contact/collect data on whether students are going to college.
2. Help students prepare to complete college applications.
3. Get students an FSA ID, confirm that they or their parents created the ID. (This is the first payment milestone for which coaches are rewarded $25 for every 15 students. One student has already received $400 for this milestone.)
4. Confirm submission of FAFSA.
5. Confirm completion. (This is the second payment milestone.)

Success: Mesa’s peer coaches are excited to be involved and take the initiative to brainstorm creative strategies such as classroom presentations. One student convinced an entire social studies department to incorporate FAFSA presentations in their classes. Garcia reports that six or seven coaches are “extremely active,” and he has observed a correlation between their level of activity and school results.

Near-Peer Strategies

In addition to peer strategies, some sites are employing near-peers (college students), for example:

San Diego hired eight college students as paid interns who give presentations and assist students with FAFSA completion in English and social studies classes.
At West Valley City, the Utah College Advising Corps provides two part-time college student employees who offer assistance at large events and in small group settings. They are provided with in-depth training about the FAFSA, college access, and various resources.

Emerging Strategies

In addition to ambassador strategies listed above, Vancouver has had success with two student ambassadors in one school, and is currently considering incentives to draw more participation. Other sites’ peer strategies include in-class assistance in Charleston, student club competitions in Corpus Christi, a Street Team in Baltimore, and poster contests in Baltimore and West Valley City. Some of these strategies are still in development but offer innovative approaches that we will be following as we track sites’ results throughout the grant.

For more information about the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge, please contact melnicks@collegeaccess.org.