By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director of Data and Strategic Services
Reading time: Seven minutes
Connecticut has been a perennial presence in the top 10 states by percent of seniors completing in the National College Attainment Network's (NCAN) FAFSA Tracker, but the state’s
leaders and advocates aren’t content to rest on their laurels and want to continue to improve. A recent article in
The 74 found Charlene M. Russell-Tucker, Commissioner for the Connecticut State Department of Education, and Emily Pallin, Executive Director of the Connecticut RISE Network (an NCAN member) describing their partnership around the Connecticut FAFSA Challenge.
The Challenge is a, “nine-month initiative where high schools across the state will be charged with boosting FAFSA completion rates for the class of 2023 relative to the class of 2022.” Eligible high schools receive “microgrants, trainings, and other
resources…as a means of helping seniors access the financial aid they deserve to pursue a postsecondary education.”
The Connecticut FAFSA Challenge is a collaboration between the Office of Governor Ned Lamont, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE), and the Connecticut RISE Network. The partnership has its genesis in the availability of American Rescue
Plan funding and the exigency of so many students needing additional support to pursue postsecondary pathways because of the pandemic’s severe educational disruptions. Although many students were interested in higher education pathways based on their
self-identified plans, students’ FAFSA completion rates showed that their needs were not being met.
“We know that FAFSA completion is highly correlated with postsecondary enrollment, and in a state where more than 70% of jobs will require some form of higher education, we saw this work as an effective tool to smoothen the path to two- and four-year
programs,” says John Scianimanico, Director of Special Projects, at the CSDE. “One of the pillars of our work at [CSDE] is promoting educational equity and leveling the playing field for all students to succeed once they graduate from our K-12 system.”
The Connecticut RISE Network is at its core comprised of nine high schools and eight public school districts that reach over 13,000 students, most of whom come from low-income backgrounds and/or identify as Black and/or Latino/a. The Network uses a collaborative,
cross-school to focus on continuous improvement and uses five focus areas to support innovation and improvement: “on-track” and postsecondary culture, targeted transition supports, data-driven educator collaboration, equitable educator practice, and
cross-school learning. Connecticut RISE previously appeared on NCAN’s blog for their work combating summer melt.
For the Connecticut FAFSA Challenge, RISE’s role was to facilitate communities of practice that could support schools participating in the Challenge. Schools participated in an application process for the community of practice and were asked to commit
to attending monthly meetings to learn about best practices and strategies and to receive RISE’s training on FAFSA completion strategies.
Schools who applied for the Challenge also had to meet other criteria. For the first year of the Challenge, a school had to have less than a 55% FAFSA completion rate the year before, which was inclusive of most school districts in the state. Every year
after that the requirements have changed a bit, but most recently the requirements moved to a schoolwide FAFSA completion rate of less than 58% FAFSA but also a FAFSA completion rate of less than 50% for low-income students.
There are two tiers to the Connecticut FAFSA Challenge, into which schools can opt. Tier one did not include individual coaching but did include a microgrant, training, access to the community of practice, resources, and communications with RISE. Tier
two received a little bit larger grant while committing to attending all of the community practice meetings and trainings; schools in this tier could elect into coaching (and 10 of them did so).
From a coaching perspective, the meetings and trainings included topics like marketing for FAFSA completion campaigns and eliminating FAFSA-related myths, family engagement strategies, student engagement in and awareness of FAFSA, and approaches to completing
a FAFSA.
“One of the key points for me is professional development,” says Sherry McLaughlin, Deputy Director of Postsecondary Success at Connecticut RISE. “Professional development for educators around college advising is such a missing component.” Many schools
do not have dedicated college advisors, and while some Connecticut school districts have third-party community-based organizations, but other than that, when there isn’t that role, the task of financial aid counseling and college advising often falls
to school counselors. Connecticut RISE’s coaching provided some of that professional opportunity for teams of school professionals.
Some of the school teams built FAFSA Task Forces. “You can’t have a team of five handling 340 students,” notes McLaughlin. These Task Forces include cross-departmental representatives like world language, math, and English teachers, college and career
readiness professionals, and school counselor. When the group comes together every other week, it can parse through student-level FAFSA completion data rather than looking at it in the aggregate. “It’s one of our change ideas. It really was impactful
and saw double-digit growth,” McLaughlin adds.
“We are proud of this work. In our first year, our FAFSA Challenge cohort improved their collective FAFSA completion rate by four points, even as the rest of the country declined by a similar amount. In our second year, the program grew from 26 to 40
schools, together improving their FAFSA completion rate by over eight points,” explains Ajit Gopalakrishnan, Chief Performance Officer at CSDE.
Districts and schools have access to student-level FAFSA completion data via the state’s EdSight Secure portal,
which is updated weekly with data from Federal Student Aid. Some schools first find out about their ability to access this data through the Connecticut RISE training.
Beyond the training, the schools receive a micro-grant based on student enrollment, and they have to complete a budget usage form that explains what they will be using the funding for. Connecticut RISE supports that process because they want to help schools
use funds for a variety of things. McLaughlin estimates that the 57 schools involved in the Challenge are receiving anywhere from $5,000-$12,000 on average.
Other NCAN members in Connecticut serving students are enthusiastic about the FAFSA Challenge and have ideas on where it could be it expanded.
“I think it’s a great thing. I am in full support of the FAFSA Challenge continuing,” says Dr. Chaka Felder-McEntire, Founder of the Higher Heights Youth Empowerment Programs, an NCAN member. Higher Heights supports six schools in Connecticut’s FAFSA
Challenge, three each in Hartford and New Haven. Felder-McEntire would like to see the number of schools served by the Challenge expanded: “We want to support more of the turnaround schools, beyond the ones we currently have, because of our
record of success.”
“I would love for the FAFSA Challenge to be something that’s maintained, but I think it has a lot of room for growth,” echoes Faith Villegas, Executive Director at the Bridgeport Public Education Fund, another NCAN member and community-based college access
program working in and around Bridgeport, Connecticut. “[The Challenge] has several categories, but it’s more than completing the FAFSA. It’s what that FAFSA indicates. How do we make those connections for those students? I wish the state would take
that a step further and let districts not only help students complete the FAFSA but also ensure that they know where they’re going before high school graduation.”
Promoting FAFSA completion and subsequent matriculation is becoming a priority in more and more states. Encouraging K-12 districts and schools, charter networks, and other community partners to expand their FAFSA completion programming is a key part of
driving these FAFSA completion increases, and these stakeholders’ roles will be even more critical during this academic year given the forthcoming Better FAFSA.
The aforementioned The 74 piece on the Connecticut FAFSA Challenge concludes in part, “We challenge other states across the country to make FAFSA completion a core component of their education and economic recovery efforts. Connecticut’s approach
is customized to its needs, but also highly replicable.” NCAN concurs. Connecticut’s approach and the pieces to make it work are very replicable. What it takes is the partners and the will to take on such an approach and adopt or adapt it to another
state’s context. NCAN looks forward to documenting additional states’ efforts in this area to challenge (pun completely intended) districts and schools to push beyond their current FAFSA completion rates.
Email to a Friend