And Carrie On

It was the 1990s. I remember a conversation in probably junior high with my parents that they made too much money for me to receive Pell funding when I went to college.

We had this conversation around the time counselors came to talk to us about setting a plan for the next four years. In news that isn’t overly surprising, I mapped out all four years of high school just to make sure I could maximize my high school experience. I guess my parents saw I was a planner and wanted to ensure I had the right expectations about college.

While I knew college was going to be expensive, I also had options. My father was a professor, so I had a discounted tuition option. I also had really strong grades, was highly involved and was a pretty good test taker.

This meant that because of my situation, I’d likely have multiple paths to achieve a college degree — and if I’m being honest, very few of them involved significant amount of debt.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had privilege and that meant I had options. Not everyone has that, and that’s what’s been the hardest to me regarding the challenges associated with FAFSA. The challenges will disproportionately impact those with the far fewer options than I had as a budding college student.

I’ve struggled with how this will impact students who need the most help. I know I’m not alone in feeling sad for students in these situations, and why I can’t change that piece, I’m trying hard to make sure we as a profession do the very best to help students in what’s a really tough situation.

Often in life, we can’t change the situation, but we can change how we respond to it.

A Few Tips to Consider

Don’t Forget Current Students — It’ so easy to focus on the prospective students and forget about current students. Current students will have to also complete the revised FAFSA, and this should be a good thing. For many students, they will receive more funding in the process, helping make college more affordable. Additionally, these are students already on our campuses, meaning we have many more mechanisms at our disposal to encourage these students to complete their FAFSA and stay engaged. Not so dissimilar from the enrollment cliff, current students are a really important part of the math of the equation, and I suspect we can do more for this population.

Make It Easy for Students/Parents — We need to find ways to support students and parents in ways that are easy for them. That could look different depending on your situation, but some possible options could involve FAFSA nights over several evenings, a Saturday FAFSA Day, videos with detailed instructions, or appointments to walk students and parents through the steps. I don’t think there is a magic potion of how to make it easy, but I do think there are plenty of things we can do to provide access that doesn’t involve a parent or student being on their own or having to take off from work to visit our office for support.

Be Polite But Persistent — When we think about communications, I think we need to make sure we’re regularly engaging on this important topic. People have so many things happening this time of year that it’s easy to get behind and miss a key message. For something this important, it’s critical that we continually remind students and parents about the importance of completing FAFSA and how it can help. While it’s important to be persistent, it’s also important to use our data effectively. We need to be paying attention to who’s already completed the FAFSA so we don’t bother those students. We all the time talk about the value of personalizing content, and this is a great way to show that we’re paying attention.

Engage Students — It’s important that current students be part of any communication strategy but I think it’s even more important for the FAFSA. Because it sounds scary, engaging current students can help to humanize the situation for prospective students. Additionally, because these students have experienced the old FAFSA, they are able to (hopefully) provide encouragement that the new version will result in more access for most students. Additionally, these students are the people who are recognized on campus. If they’re encouraging current and prospective students to complete the FAFSA, they likely have more gravitas than the MarComm team in creating something that will resonate.

In Closing

I know this is a tough time, but another thing I think that is important is to continually encourage our Admissions teams and remind them we’re here to support and help however we can. We talk about MarComm and Admissions needing to be great partners, and I think this is a perfect moment to live that by reaching out and saying we’re here for you and we’re here to help.