Oct. 1 is just around the corner, and with it will arrive the FAFSA cycle for the 2022-23 academic year. Candidly, it’s a rough time for FAFSA completion. After two consecutive high school classes saw significant year-over-year completion declines, seniors from the class of 2022 enter the academic year in a somehow-still-unstable environment due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this environment, it is critical to understand
the obstacles to FAFSA completion for students and their families and the new and shifting dynamics in front of practitioners.
The New York City-based College Access: Research & Action (CARA) sought out key insights about these last two questions in some recently-released research. CARA’s mission is to ensure that first-generation college students, students from low-income backgrounds, and students of color have the knowledge and support necessary to enroll in and persist
through college. They accomplish that mission through whole school and peer-to-peer models of postsecondary advising and myriad research, policy, and advocacy efforts.
Across their 50 NYC partner high schools, CARA observed steep FAFSA completion drops. These schools serve a predominantly low-income (83%) and Black/Latinx (82%) student population.
As of March 1, 43% of CARA’s partner school seniors had completed the FAFSA, down 13% from the previous year and 10% lower than the citywide average. Fortunately, those partner schools recovered over the course of the spring, and by the end of June, 60%
of seniors had completed FAFSA, surpassing the national average and falling only a few points short of the citywide average.
To better understand the FAFSA completion environment, CARA met multiple times with counselors at four schools representing a cross-section of their network. CARA’s brief notes
The trajectory of FAFSA completion at these schools this spring provides an opportunity to understand the barriers students and families encountered in completing FAFSA during a second COVID spring. In analyzing the information we gathered, we came to
see those barriers as being further exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic - different in scale but not in kind - from pre-existing issues.
CARA found that the 20-40% of the senior classes who did not complete a FAFSA at the interviewed schools fell roughly into five categories:
Undocumented students, who were not eligible to complete a FAFSA.
Those tripped up by the complications of the financial aid application process, some whose families did not trust the process enough to share tax details and personal information, and a larger group who “ran out of steam when they encountered the
multiple steps required to finish it.”
Middle-income families who “based on an understanding of how much federal aid they would qualify for - probably little to none - chose not to engage with the deeply unpleasant bureaucracy that FAFSA represented.”
Students who intended all along to enter the workforce and/or who “were consistently absent, or who dropped out during senior year or before (these students are counted in cohort enrollment numbers, which are used to calculate rates of FAFSA completion),
but were effectively never in school for the counseling office to serve at all.”
Savvy readers will note there are just four bullet points above, but the brief notes five categories. This fifth is worth delving into more thoroughly because it includes those students for whom “the conversation around college has changed.”
For some of these students, that conversation changed because the prospect of virtual college was unappealing. The brief notes that, “While there’s no question that online learning has led many students to defer college, the deeper financial risk-benefit
calculation that so many low-income families need to make to attend college pre-dated the pandemic.”
Specifically,
Since COVID, the risk side of the ledger has simply grown so large for so many families that it is now visible to counselors, teachers, and school leaders in ways that it was not before. The financial vulnerability of low-income families is a daily
and enduring reality in their lives; as it has worsened during the pandemic - and perhaps as more adults in schools are more aware of and asking about these realities - more students are saying it out loud.
It's not all negatives in CARA’s new brief. They also note five innovations and developments that COVID spurred and that represent bright spots in FAFSA completion practice:
Increased student comfort with computer-based application tasks.
More parent engagement through creative scheduling and the use of virtual meetings.
Improved college office monitoring of students’ application progress.
Using classroom time to support students’ FAFSA completion.
The value of trained near-peer counselors who come from students’ own high schools.
CARA’s effort here is obviously focused on New York City, but many of the obstacles and developments will resonate with NCAN members across the country and are relevant in a wide variety of communities. As the field sets its sights on the 2022-23 FAFSA
cycle, keeping front of mind the experiences that inform students’ FAFSA reluctance and the approaches that can mitigate it will be critical.
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