NCAN compiled a number of resources related to key topics around improving students' postsecondary outcomes. This evolving list of resources focuses on best practices and case studies related to increasing access to financial aid by improving FAFSA completion and reducing the impact of being selected for verification.
Why Invest in Increasing FAFSA Completion? FAFSA noncompletion rates present an enormous opportunity because FAFSA completion is so strongly correlated with good
postsecondary student outcomes. First, FAFSA completion is strongly associated with postsecondary enrollment: 92% of high school seniors who complete FAFSA attend college directly from high school, compared to just 51% of FAFSA noncompleters.
Second, research has found that every additional $1,000 in grant aid per student increases postsecondary persistence rates by 4 percentage points.
NCAN's FAFSA Resource Library - NCAN has identified key resources for the major areas all communities should address when creating or strengthening a FAFSA completion initiative.
These major areas are:
Laying the groundwork for FAFSA completion and identifying/engaging partners.
Guiding student through the FAFSA completion process, as well as all that comes after the form is completed.
Training partners to understand why FAFSA completion is important, as well as how to help students and families through the process.
Communicating effectively with students and families through effective messaging and the appropriate communications vehicles.
Accessing and using student-level FAFSA completion data to target your FAFSA completion efforts efficiently.
Form Your Future Form Your Future® is a national campaign to increase FAFSA completion by high school seniors, specifically low-income students and students of color. Form
Your Future includes the following free resources:
Form Your Future FAFSA Tracker NCAN’s interactive dashboard tracking FAFSA completions at the national, state, city, district, and school levels. Updated weekly
throughout the year with data available for the 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22 FAFSA cycles.
FAFSA.gov Help and Resources Do you have unanswered questions about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) process? Get in-depth
information about the FAFSA® form and what to expect after you submit your application.
How Schools Engage Students to Help Increase FAFSA Completion NCAN selected 25 U.S. cities to participate
in the 2018-19 FAFSA Completion Challenge. Through this project, NCAN challenged each of the grant recipient cities to increase their FAFSA completion rates. Through focus groups and interviews, this blog post profiles various peer strategies
employed by sites to provide information about how to implement peer strategies locally.
NCAN FAFSA Completion Challenge Kickoff: Pre-Implementation Challenges NCAN kicked off the 2018-19
FAFSA Completion Challenge with a summer institute convening city grantees in Dallas in June 2018. Throughout the summer, ASA met with sites to learn more about their implementation plans. The grantee sites shared several early, pre-implementation
concerns, which are summarized in this post.
WEBINAR: Using Social and Traditional Media to Increase FAFSA Completion During this webinar, attendees will learn how FAFSA Completion Challenge
cities have used social and traditional media – including texting, geofencing, and other strategies – to boost FAFSA completion. How can you effectively target these ads? How do they work and what resources are required to implement these strategies?
Come hear from cities involved in the FAFSA Completion Challenge about how they've used social and traditional media with their students and families.
10 Key Tips and Tools for Helping Students Understand Financial Aid Affordability is a key issue
for many students and families when choosing which colleges to apply to and attend, but the financial aid process can seem overwhelming. At the 2018 NCAN conference TICAS and uAspire shared specific ways that counselors can help students and families
approach the issue of college affordability and understand their financial aid options. Here are a few of the tips and tools they shared.
Engaging Peers and Near-Peers in Increasing FAFSA Completion Often students know the best ways to communicate with their peers -- so why
not engage them to help in your FAFSA completion efforts! During this webinar, presenters share strategies for how to select, train and deploy peer and near-peer high school and college students to increase FAFSA completion rates in your community.
49 states allow districts and schools to receive student-level data on FAFSA submission and completion, but the process for districts and schools to get the data from the state varies widely. NCAN is working on a list of processes for getting access to
this data by state. Watch this space for future updates.
NCAN’s eLearning platform - A set of online training modules that address college admissions advising, financial aid, serving specific student populations, data tracking, college
success and cultural competency. We have two units that specifically address the FAFSA filing process and the FAFSA follow-up steps. Available free to all employees of NCAN member programs. Check out the roster of courses, course descriptions
and registration form at the link above.
FAFSA Verification: Three Common Roadblocks and How to Solve Them Completing
verification can be stressful and burdensome, but here’s the thing: it’s absolutely worth it. As advisors, we have the opportunity to support students through the process so they don’t miss out on the financial aid that can make college possible.
Dell Scholars has been through this process with hundreds of students over the years. Here are a few common roadblocks their students faced during FAFSA verification and how they helped them stay on track.
Form Your Future’s “The Guide”: The more you know about the FAFSA application process, the more you can help others. Download this resource guide to learn all about
the FAFSA process and the most common questions asked by low-income students and parents about the form.
DIY FAFSA Kit for Counselors This is a great resource from Utah Futures. The first
section is state-specific, but sections Two through Four are valuable and provide information on hosting a FAFSA event, handouts for students and parents, and how to engage in FAFSA follow-up.
Customized Nudging to Improve FAFSA Completion and Income Verification: Informational and behavioral
barriers hinder social benefit take-up. We investigate the impact of mitigating these barriers through providing personalized information on benefits application status and application assistance on filing the Free Application for Federal Student
Aid (FAFSA), the gateway to college financial aid. Through a multidistrict experiment, we assess the impact of this outreach, delivered via text message. This data-driven strategy improves FAFSA completion and college matriculation and potentially
reduces the negative consequences of additional procedural hurdles such as FAFSA income verification, required of approximately one third of filers nationally.
