NCAN members know the importance of filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Completing a FAFSA is a key indicator of whether a student will pursue postsecondary education.
When college access professionals know where students are in the FAFSA completion process, they can more effectively target outreach to students and families. Many states have access to student-level FAFSA data through the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA). However, some states struggle to efficiently get the data from FSA into the hands of districts, schools, and community-based organizations.
We have identified four states that are making the most of their student-level FAFSA data. These states are streamlining the process, cohesively organizing their online content, and providing simple, explicit instructions for how practitioners can access
the data.
Iowa
Over the past few years, Iowa College Aid has ambitiously overhauled how it shares student-level FAFSA data. Iowa now has an impressive 100% of public schools in the state receiving student-level FAFSA data.
“Our agency had been using a system that involved schools logging in to a portal, uploading their own student list, and creating a report. Our number one priority was to streamline, simplify, and automate this process to make it easier for school counselors
to get the information they needed without having to do extra work,” said Jamie Covell and Christina Sibaouih of Iowa College Aid in an NCAN guest blog.
When it comes to student-level data, one of the biggest hurdles faced by individuals and institutions anywhere is the disconnect between who has permissions for which data. Iowa was no different.
“After a few months of working with our legal team and the U.S. Department of Education, we were able to determine that student-level data-sharing agreements with our agency only needed to be signed by our regional AEA’s, who, in turn, have data-sharing
agreements with each of the schools in their region. This narrowed the number of agreements from 343 to 9 AEA-level agreements,” wrote Covell and Sibaouih.
All schools now receive weekly FAFSA reports from their regional AEA PREP (Area Education Agencies’ Postsecondary Readiness and Equity Partnership), which has data-sharing agreements with local schools. These reports are stored in a Google Drive folder
where the school’s local access manager, usually a school counselor, can access the data via the Iowa College Aid Processing System (ICAPS).
Reports include information such as whether or not each student has completed the FAFSA, is missing signatures, and/or has been selected for verification.
Other designated entities such as TRIO programs or education nonprofits must complete the data-sharing agreement with Iowa College Aid for one of their employees to become a data custodian. Once approved, they are also able to access weekly FAFSA completion
reports for their students.
On top of this data sharing, Iowa also has a robust FAFSA tracker which compares the state’s FAFSA completion rates by year, high school, and region.
To read more about Iowa’s student-level FAFSA completion efforts, check out this article on the NCAN blog.
The California Student Aid Commission manages the state’s financial aid portal, WebGrants, through which authorized individuals can view student-level data. Each campus or district has a designated
Webgrants system administrator who oversees the data and manages access for school personnel like administrators and counselors. It is a relatively simple process to gain access to the data, as all necessary forms can be completed on the same webpage
and have clear instructions.
California sports the Race to Submit Dashboard, which shows the percentage of completed FAFSA/CA Dream Act applications and Cal Grant Award applications at the state, county, and district
levels. The FAFSA tracker also includes a leaderboard that ranks the percentage of complete applications by high school enrollment. The website includes an FAQ page featuring helpful information, like the source of the data, explanations of terms, and when to expect the next data update. Another bonus is that those interested in digging into the data can export the dashboard data as a CSV file.
The California FAFSA data experience is straightforward, clearly laid out, and useful for practitioners. Gaining access to the student-level data isn’t a rigmarole or fraught with red tape, which should be every state’s goal. Having a valuable public-facing
dashboard to track outcomes is icing on the proverbial cake.
Arizona
Under the umbrella of the “College & Career Goal Arizona” statewide initiative, the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education (ACPE) leads the FAFSA Finish Line project. Through that project, school counselors can access student-level FAFSA completion data from the state down to the district or school level. After schools complete data-sharing agreements and counselors complete user agreements, counselors
upload their roster of seniors to the AZGrants website and can then access student-level FAFSA data.
Arizona has all the relevant forms and links neatly organized and easily accessible:
Each of these documents is concise and easy to understand, making it that much easier for counselors or administrators to use the data. The document FAFSA Finish Line Tip is especially helpful, as it outlines possible discrepancies between the state’s student-level data and FSA data.
Arizona also has a strong FAFSA dashboard that allows anyone to compare schools, look at individual high schools, and view total estimated Pell Grant funding derived from FAFSA completion.
Rhode Island’s website is perhaps the most simple and straightforward of the four this post considers. It includes few links, and they all serve a purpose:
The list of districts with active data-sharing agreements is practical and certainly a feature that might be worth replicating in other states. No district or school should want to be left out on obtaining this data if it is so readily available.
Rhode Island has still another FAFSA dashboard. It features the percentage of students who have completed the FAFSA, the number of students remaining to meet the state’s goal of 70% and 100%, and a statewide
map.
So, You’re Not One of These Four States…
The thread that connects these states is that each has a website that is easy to navigate, comprehensive, and provides straightforward information. When the process is streamlined, it becomes easier for counselors, administrators, and college access professionals
to obtain and use this important data.
States should strongly consider making necessary documents such as MOU’s and data-sharing agreements readily available on their website. Removing the step of having to request these documents from someone in another department (or even worse, having to
track down which department inside the state education agency’s bureaucratic structure) is an easy way to simplify this process.
Taking a nod from Rhode Island, states should also consider making public a list of districts with ongoing data-sharing agreements.
Each of the states listed has an easily accessible FAFSA dashboard. This is a great tool to create incentive around FAFSA completion competitions.
These four states aren’t an exclusive list of those doing it well. Honorable mentions go to Colorado, Connecticut, and Texas, all of which make student-level data available through various processes. NCAN will continue to explore which states make this
data readily available and which have room for improvement.
Now that 49 states (at least) have access to student-level data from Federal Student Aid thanks to a Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) agreement, it is important that states learn from each other in how to best connect practitioners with this data.
Practitioners not currently satisfied with their state’s process in delivering the data should consider passing this along to their state education agency.
A future post on this topic will dive even further into best practices related to delivering student-level FAFSA completion data to the district, school, and CBO practitioners who are on the front lines of assisting students and families with filling
out the FAFSA.
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