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MCAN’s Strategies to Engage Students and Facilitate FAFSA Completion During the Summer – or Any Time

Posted on September 2, 2021June 15, 2022 by Bill DeBaun
MCAN’s Strategies to Engage Students and Facilitate FAFSA Completion During the Summer – or Any Time

By Sara Melnick, Deputy Director, National College Attainment Network

As of the writing of this blog post, FAFSA completions among high school seniors are down 4.3% from last year. But some states have found ways to buck this downward trend and engage students during the summer months.

NCAN recently hosted a webinar highlighting some of the innovative strategies states are using to increase their completion rates. The states that presented on this webinar all received funding from NCAN (via the Kresge Foundation) to increase FAFSA completion for the high school graduating class of 2021.

Even though a new school year is upon us, many of the strategies discussed during this webinar are relevant to facilitating FAFSA completion at any point in the school year. And even though the strategies discussed during this webinar were implemented at the state level, almost all are relevant to local and district-level efforts focused on increasing FAFSA completion.

The first presenter on this webinar was Jamie Jacobs, deputy director of the Michigan College Access Network (MCAN). Jamie described a number of FAFSA completion strategies MCAN has been implementing throughout the summer.

FAFSA Deadline Extension

MCAN made policy changes to facilitate FAFSA completion and, ultimately, college enrollment.

Michigan’s state priority FAFSA deadline has historically been March 1. But MCAN knew that, especially this year, students might mistakenly believe that they would not be able to enroll in college if they missed that deadline, even though it is only a priority deadline.

To address this challenge, MCAN worked with the Michigan Department of Treasury – the agency in Michigan that established the state FAFSA deadline – to push the deadline back to May 1 for this year. The choice of May 1 was strategic on the part of MCAN because, in Michigan, May 1 (Decision Day) has for about a decade been associated with the celebration of postsecondary decisions and enrollment. The shift of the priority deadline from March 1 to May 1 had two positive outcomes:

  • It provided more time to encourage students to complete the FAFSA using, among other strategies, student incentives, competitions, and cash prizes for FAFSA completion.
  • The narrative around the looming and impending March 1 deadline shifted to be more closely associated with the upbeat and celebratory May 1 Decision Day.

Strategic Outreach

MCAN sent short, attractive, direct-to-students communications via email, social media, and paid advertising focused on FAFSA completion.

The organization also reached out to school staff early in the summer to engage them in getting the word out about FAFSA completion to amplify/reinforce the messages students were receiving directly.

And throughout the state, MCAN is helping to disseminate a clear message to students and families that it’s not too late to enroll in a postsecondary program. The organization has engaged higher ed, K-12, and state-level association partners, such as the Parent Teacher Association, in this messaging since, when this webinar aired, there were still many postsecondary institutions that were still enrolling students.

Additionally, MCAN is encouraging their postsecondary partners across the state to reach out to students who have been admitted to an institution but have not submitted a FAFSA. MCAN is appealing to the desire of these institutions to increase their “yield,” since a student with a completed FAFSA is likely to have a much different – and potentially favorable – financial aid package and might therefore be more likely to attend that institution.

Expanded Summer Advising

MCAN worked with their state community service coalition to deploy summer AmeriCorps VISTA staff to double down on advising to help mitigate summer melt. The major focus of this advising was FAFSA completion.

This strategy was still in its early stages at the time of this webinar but showed much promise, especially around developing and delivering a coordinated summer melt strategy for the first time.

To help get the word out about these advising opportunities, MCAN reached out to partners, such as the state-level associations for superintendents, principals, and others. Essentially, MCAN has become a communication arm of these associations – writing plug-and-play emails and social media posts – so it’s easy for associations to get the word out that these college access services are available.

We are grateful to MCAN for sharing these insights and ideas with us. As we prepare for the release of the new FAFSA on Oct. 1, stay tuned for more tips on how to boost FAFSA completion in your communities.

Posted in What WorksTagged MCAN, MichiganLeave a Comment on MCAN’s Strategies to Engage Students and Facilitate FAFSA Completion During the Summer – or Any Time

#FAFSABrightSpots: MCAN Spearheads Collective FAFSA Completion Efforts in Michigan

Posted on July 7, 2020July 22, 2020 by Bill DeBaun
#FAFSABrightSpots: MCAN Spearheads Collective FAFSA Completion Efforts in Michigan

By Jamie Jacobs, Deputy Director, Michigan College Access Network

For the past five years, Michigan College Access Network (MCAN) has organized the “College Cash Campaign,” which is designed to increase FAFSA completions among high school seniors. The campaign is a part of a larger strategy called College Bound Michigan (CBMI), which also includes Michigan College Month and College Decision Day. Together, these three efforts facilitate college application completion, FAFSA completion, and final college selection.

In 2019-20, more than 400 high schools participated in CBMI, which was the highest since we launched these efforts with College Application Week back in 2011. College Cash Campaign runs annually from Nov. 1 to March 1. March 1 is Michigan’s FAFSA deadline.

To participate in the College Cash Campaign schools agreed to the following:

  • Setting a bold FAFSA completion goal.
  • Selecting a FAFSA champion.
  • Systematically tracking student-level FAFSA completion data.

Governor’s FAFSA Challenge

In December 2019, the College Cash Campaign received a major boost from Michigan’s Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. When she had learned that $100 million in federal Pell Grants went unclaimed by Michigan high school graduates, she sought to put more free money in the hands of students in the spirit of making college more affordable. Thus, the Governor’s FAFSA Challenge was launched! That challenge was to every high school in Michigan to increase their FAFSA completion rates from the year before, aiming for a 75% completion rate in 2020.

The FAFSA completion rate in Michigan for the 2018-19 year was 56%. The governor teamed up with the lieutenant governor to record a FAFSA challenge video that was viewed more than 1,700 times via MCAN’s Facebook page. Because of the Governor’s interest, MCAN was able to partner with multiple organizations to show a collective effort: Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Department of Treasury, Student Scholarships and Grants, Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals, Michigan Association of College Admission Counseling and the Detroit Regional Chamber. Leveraging these connections raised the visibility of the College Cash Campaign.

We also established several milestone goals along the way:

  • High schools achieving at least a 65% completion rate received a framed tribute from the governor.
  • High schools achieving at least a 75% completion rate would receive an award presented at a future school board meeting.

Part of the Governor’s FAFSA Challenge included that three top high schools would be named and would receive a $10,000 cash prize. Ten regional winners would also be selected from across Michigan and would be eligible for a visit to the Capitol and a photo opportunity with Gov. Whitmer.

In early April, MCAN announced the 13 winners of the challenge. Thirty-six high participating schools were recognized as having at least a 75% FAFSA completion rate as of March 1, 2020.

Data Access, Tracking, and Sharing

Another major accomplishment was the establishment of a data-sharing partnership with the Michigan Department of Treasury’s Student Scholarships and Grants division, which allowed MCAN to publicly display aggregate FAFSA completion data by high school. These data empowered high schools to have a new level of specificity in their data available at the lift of a finger and encouraged many more schools to process the necessary paperwork to access student-level data to target their interventions and support.

Response During a Pandemic

Once the pandemic forced the closure of K-12 in Michigan, we quickly pivoted to ensure FAFSA completion rates could remain a priority. This pivoting include the following new efforts:

  • Virtual College Advising. MCAN’s 56 college advisers immediately moved their postsecondary attainment work to a virtual setting and were laser-focused on FAFSA completion rates. They communicated with their students via text, email, social media, and virtual video calls.
  • College Advising Hotline. In early May, MCAN launched a free, statewide college advising hotline for all students in grades 9-12. In promoting the hotline, we made sure to communicate that help with the FAFSA was available on the hotline. We believe this was the first of its kind in the country.
  • Paid Advertisements in Social Media. In an effort to keep FAFSA completion rates going up, MCAN invested in several paid advertisements on Facebook and Instagram. These advertisements promoted the FAFSA, the Department of Treasury- SSG Call Center, and the hotline.

As of June 3, Michigan’s FAFSA completion rate is 51.1%, slightly above the FAFSA completion rate at this same time last year.

We still have much work to do to reach the goal of 75%. But we are hopeful that 2019-20 demonstrated that with a bold challenge by a governor, an increase in high schools’ participation in the College Cash Campaign, new partnerships, and creative solutions during an international health crisis, we can move the needle and demonstrate that we are changing a culture and behaviors in support of making a postsecondary education both accessible and affordable.

Posted in What WorksTagged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, MCAN

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