Sautter Award Nomination

Sautter Award Nomination

Project Title:

“Seven Easy Steps to the FAFSA: A Student’s Guide to the Federal Application for Federal Student Aid”

Submitted By:

Michael Miller

Director, Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships

University of California, Santa Barbara

(805) 893-2118

Development Team:

Nathan Cook

Paula Reese

Logan Franken

Lisa Goto

Jason Valencia

Michael Miller

Brenda Curiel

Significance of the Project:

As the national economy has slowed in recent years, record numbers of families are turning to financial aid offices to find ways to afford the rising cost of higher education. The main vehicle for applying for financial aid is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).Millions of families across the country fail to complete the FAFSA because they either do not have access to information on how to apply or they are simply intimidated by the complex nature of the FAFSA. Research shows that of the 8.7 million students who start but do not complete the FAFSA, more than 36% would qualify for significant amounts of financial aid, including the Federal Pell Grant. Many of these students are first generation college students. To help combat this national problem, we have created an online tutorial called, "Seven Easy Steps to the FAFSA: A Student's Guide to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid." The tutorial has been distributed nationwide to help potential and continuing students complete the FAFSA. The overall purpose of this multimedia tool is provide another method of reference rather than having them complete the standard text-based applications that are available today. You can access the tutorial using the link below.

Project Description:

One of the biggest issues facing higher education in the United States currently is the rapidly rising cost of college tuition. Many low income and first generation college students are being pushed aside in their quest of going to college simply because they are unable to afford the ever increasing costs associated with a four-year degree.

The United States is fortunate in that we do have a financial aid system in place to help gain access to secondary education for all students. By in large, there are three levels of financial aid that a student may qualify for. These funds are administered at the federal, state and university levels. The federal funding that is available to prospective and current students is administered by the US Department of Education. According to the Department of Education, more than 9 million people benefit from at least one of the federal grant or loan programs. They also estimate that they disbursed more the $83 billion in aid during the 2008-2009 academic year to needy students and families.

In most cases, in order to apply for federal, state and university aid, a student and their parents (if the student is considered a dependant student) must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the FAFSA. The FAFSA has been the most common method of determining students’ financial need for the various aid programs since 1992. In 1992, the Higher Education Amendment Act was passed and it replaced the two existing federal need analysis formulas in the Pell Grant Formula and the Congressional Methodology with a single Federal Need Analysis Methodology. This was in hopes of simplifying and streamlining the financial aid process. Most financial aid professionals would argue that the process has only become more bureaucratic since 1992.

Since its inception, the FAFSA has become a vehicle that allows the federal government to cross check the validity of several different federal programs. For example, Question #23 of the FAFSA deals with prior drug offenses and in some cases requires that a financial aid office contact local law enforcement agencies. The Internal Revenue Service also uses the financial aid process to ensure that the millions of financial aid applicants are filing their taxes correctly by requiring that financial aid professionals are familiar with certain basic tax laws. And then there is the Department of Homeland Security, which does cross checks with their database and that of the Social Security Administration to determine if the information that is being provided on the FAFSA is true and accurate. These are just a few examples of how the financial aid application process has grown into an administrative nightmare for institutions of higher education and how it has become increasingly difficult for students and parents to navigate.

The 2008-2009 version of the FAFSA has grown to include 102 questions ranging from the age of the student’s oldest parent to whether or not their parent were eligible to file a 1040A or 1040EZ to what the net worth of their investments are. Many families find that the financial aid process to far too cumbersome and they simply throw their hands in the air which prematurely ends the dream of a college education for many students. Much has been made of the need to simplify the financial aid application process and the former Director of the U.S. Department of Education, Margaret Spellings has made it a priority which was then echoed by the current director, Arne Duncan. It is estimated that back in 2000, more than 850,000 students that would have qualified for some form of federal financial aid were unable or unwilling to complete the necessary paperwork to qualify for financial aid.

The concern surrounding accessibility to a higher education degree has been at the forefront of many political agendas and it seems that more now than ever, politicians and higher education administrators are pushing for something to be done to address the complexity of the financial aid application process. Due to the fact the FAFSA is so complicated and many applicants are left to fend for themselves, unfortunately many fail. To combat the complexity of the financial aid application process, I have designed a series of tutorials that are meant to help families complete the required financial aid documents. These have been translated into Spanish as well to help assist those parents that feel more comfortable with the Spanish language.

Three years ago we designed the first tutorial that covered the FAFSA in both English and Spanish in hopes of walking potential college students through the financial aid application process. We then redesigned the tutorials to mirror the 2010-2011 and 2012-2012 academic years. To determine the effectiveness of this project, we will also create an online survey and distribute it to all of the higher education institutions that use the FAFSA tutorial. I want to determine:

1. Did the tutorial assist their student population complete the FAFSA process?
2. Did the tutorial have an impact on staff time or availability? If so, what was that impact?
3. Did the tutorial cut down on the number of mistakes that were made on the FAFSA?
4. Should institutions of higher learning focus more on using multimedia when dealing with the student of today?

We believe that this project will in fact assist students who are trying to attend college, especially first generation college students. When you look at how this generation of student gets their information, they are very much visual learners. Very few are willing to sit down and read through pages and pages of documents. We firmly believe that the U.S. Department of Education should take the lead and develop a more user friendly format for those looking to complete the FAFSA.

The tutorial itself was designed to use screen shots and audio instructions to walk families through the FAFSA application process. Our team broke down the tutorial into section which mirrors the seven steps of the FAFSA.

Currently, hundreds of colleges, universities and high school counseling departments are using the “Seven Easy Steps to the FAFSA: A Student’s Guide to the Federal Application for Federal Student Aid” tutorial. These institutions are able to link directly to our web site to access the tutorial or they can load the files directly to their own departmental sites which allow them to design the tool to flow better with their web site. For an example, see the following example:

Technology Used:

This project was done on a shoestring budget using the following tools: The audio was recorded using a TASCAM DR-1 Portable Digital Recorder, and was mixed using Apple’s GarageBand software.

Screenshots for the slides were edited in Microsoft Office Picture Manager. The tutorial was then created using Adobe Captivate. Our web developer used Adobe Photoshop, Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to create the web interface.

Timeframe:

The tutorial needs to be renewed every year because the FAFSA application changes. This process generally happens in December and requires that we learn of the new changes to the FAFSA and update the script for the audio portion of the tutorial. We also take new screen shots and update the website. In total, the renewal of the tutorial takes roughly four weeks from start to finish.

Overall Customer Satisfaction:

The response to this project has been overwhelming to say the least. We hear from students and education administrators on a weekly basis about how helpful the tutorial has been. A simple Google search of the title will show how many schools are using our tutorial. For your reference, I have attached a partial list of schools currently using this tool. We feel that this list speaks volumes as to the customer satisfaction with regard to the

DakotaCountyTechnicalCollege:

Green RiverCommunity College:

TrineUniversity:

North Texas Higher Education Authority, Inc.:

Eastern Kentucky Univ.:

Ohio State Univ. @ Mansfield:

California Lutheran Univ.:

CentralPiedmontCommunity College:

MoraineParkTechnicalCollege:

Oklahoma Stat Univ.:

LordFairfaxCommunity College:

GuilfordTechnicalCommunity College:

University of Pittsburgh @ Greensburg:

UC Merced:

MedicalUniv. of South Carolina:

The OfficialState of Michigan:

HagerstownCommunity College:

University of North Carolina Greensboro:

Jacksonville State Univ.:

SUNYCollege @ Oneonta:

The Comm. College of Baltimore County:

Boise State Univ.:

ValenciaComm.College:

LangstonUniv.:

SouthPuget SoundComm.College:

William Jessup Univ.:

UC Berkeley:

CSU Northridge:

Wayne State Univ.:

College Foundation of North Carolina:

Alabama Career Information Network:

Generation TX:

National College Goal Sunday:

Art CenterCollege of Design:

ChowanUniv.:

Byrd Consulting & Training:

Missouri Southern StateUniv.:

Mat-SuCentralSchool:

ChristianCollege Parents:

Arnot Ogden medical Center:

LoyolaUniv.New Orleans:

Eastern Kentucky Univ.:

AlfredState College:

WesleyanCollege:

Alamo Colleges - San AntonioCollege:

Univ. of WestGeorgia:

Delhi SUNY:

BaldwinWallaceCollege:

Univ. of Alaska Anchorage:

HerkimerCountyComm.College:

Rose State College:

ElmhurstCollege:

Student Lending Analytics Blog:

Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn:

GardenCityComm.College:

RivierCollege:

Clatsop CC:

BlackHawkCollege:

CrowderCollege:

Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater:

Baltimore City CC:

Florida International Univ.:

Northampton CC:

AshlandUniv.:

Univ. of West Alabama-Livingston:

BellevueCollege:

GustavusAdolphusCollege:

UrbanCollege of Boston:

LowerColumbiaCollege:

Purdue Univ.-North Central:

DaphneHigh School:

GAcollege411:

ScrippsCollege:

Idaho Sate Univ.:

Southwestern Oklahoma State Univ.:

James Madison Univ.:

Univ. of Colorado, Denver:

Queen's Univ.:

Rowland High Schools' Facebook Page: