Free Application For Federal Student Aid Research Articles

Revolutionizing Access to Higher Education in the United States by Enhancing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) System

Revolutionizing Access to Higher Education in the United States by Enhancing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) System

Students of color experiencing barriers in the financial aid process at an urban community college: A critical race policy analysis

AbstractThe financial aid process extends beyond once a student submits the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application. Scholars have found that the financial aid process can be cumbersome, especially for minoritized students. What is unclear in the literature are the additional hurdles students encounter to obtain financial aid. I conducted interviews with community college students and financial aid staff at an urban community college to better understand these difficulties in the process. I employed critical race policy analysis and whiteness as property to contextualize how financial aid is structured to deter Students of Color from accessing financial aid benefits. The findings allude to communication issues between financial aid staff and students, and students seeking assistance with their financial aid from other campus departments.

College Enrollment and Mandatory FAFSA Applications: Evidence from Louisiana

I estimate the impact of a Louisiana state policy that mandated Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) applications as a high school graduation requirement. I find significant increases in FAFSA completion rates (19 percentage points), and my estimates imply an increase of 1–2 percentage points in college enrollment. There is suggestive evidence that these effects were more concentrated among lower-income students/schools, and merit-based state financial aid applications also increased. The design of this mandate implies that pushing students into action may be more effective than informational nudges and that localized support systems such as counselors are important for the success of a top-down policy. (JEL D91, H75, I21, I22, I23, I28)

FAFSA Completion: Considerations for an Extension-Led Statewide Nudge Campaign

Eight U.S. states have enacted legislation that mandates high school seniors to act on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) before graduation. At least 10 other states are considering implementing similar FAFSA requirements. While proponents of the law believe it will affect postsecondary education and the workforce positively, dissenters argue that the policy is an unfunded mandate that taxes students and parents without offering adequate resources. This article synthesizes existing literature related to policy-related nudge campaigns to provide an Extension-led, cost-effective strategy to achieve the FAFSA mandate’s goal and improve citizens’ FAFSA completion behavior.

Say Yes to Education—Buffalo: A Human Capabilities Approach to College Access and Local Economic Development

In December 2012, researchers from the University at Buffalo partnered with Buffalo Public Schools and Say Yes to Education—Buffalo to assist students and families with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The community had just announced a last-dollar tuition guarantee for all public and charter high school graduates. Students had to apply for federal and state financial aid to be eligible. We use the human capabilities framework described by St. John to examine the contributions of this specific intervention and the broader collective impact strategy. In this study, we employ difference-in-difference regression analysis to examine the effects of a FAFSA completion intervention and find that providing support to students and families to complete the financial aid process increased FAFSA completion rates by more than 60%, year over year. In addition to considering the outcomes of this intervention, we report lessons learned in the process of establishing a university-community collaboration to improve postsecondary opportunity and economic development. We find that effective collaboration takes time and a shared commitment to understanding and addressing problems of practice in schools.

When Free Ain’t Really Free: The Hidden Barriers of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid

A completed Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) serves as an objective and neutral form required for all individuals who plan to attend college. The social barriers that the application produces and reinforces are all but objective. The application collects information and sorts students into groups based on their responses to questions regarding citizenship, race, gender, marital status, the income of parents, and convictions; and distributes or restricts financial resources based on group membership. The intersection of low socioeconomic status combined with experience in the criminal justice system, which disproportionately arrests and charges people of color (Butler, 2017; Brown, Lane, & Rogers 2002) exacerbates gaps in FAFSA completion rates. While college completion exists as a mitigating factor that combats intergenerational reproduction in the criminal justice system, minority youth who are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system continuously face challenges accessing higher education. The FAFSA serves as the indicator of financial status since it assigns a score indicating to colleges and universities how much families are expected to contribute. The sorting function serves as a barrier to postsecondary education because it does not consider how these groupings affect the chances and choices of the applicant. The language as well as policies such as the Drug-Free Student Aid Provision are deterrents for people of color who bear the social burden of the label convict. Adding to the body of research on the FAFSA, this study examines the use, effects, and function of its written language, particularly question 23. A discourse analysis of the wording of question 23 on the FAFSA reveals the maintenance of a racialized social hierarchy that hinders access to educational opportunity through practice, process, and policy. This finding suggests that access to postsecondary education is not as accessible as the mainstream messages that resonate with prevailing discursive themes.

Financial Aid Nudges: A National Experiment With Informational Interventions

Despite high prices, many college students do not re-file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or file late, making college less affordable. Low-cost technological interventions delivering personalized information and/or advising may improve refiling and academic outcomes, but questions remain regarding the efficacy of this approach at scale. This multi-pronged randomized experiment tested informational and framing text message interventions for a national sample of approximately 10,000 undergraduates. The text outreach caused earlier FAFSA re-filing for some students. However, gains in re-filing during the active intervention period were not sustained after the intervention concluded and did not translate into additional federal financial aid or improved postsecondary persistence or attainment. Implications for the scaling and targeting of nudging are discussed.

Price Discrimination and Public Policy in the US College Market

Abstract In the US, the federal government grants colleges access to a student’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which facilitates substantial price discrimination. This article is the first to estimate the consequences of allowing colleges to use the FAFSA in their pricing decisions. I build and estimate a structural model of college pricing and simulate counterfactuals wherein some or all of the FAFSA information is restricted. I find that if FAFSA information were restricted, 13$\%$ of students attending elite colleges would be inefficiently priced out of the elite market. Nevertheless, student welfare would rise as colleges charged the majority of students lower prices. Colleges do use the FAFSA to transfer resources from high- to low-income students on average, but this redistribution is highly imprecise: allowing colleges to use the FAFSA harms one-third of low-income students while one in seven high-income students actually benefit.

“Take my word for it”: Group Texts and Testimonials Enhance State and Federal Student Aid Applications

As the cost of college continues to rise, it has become increasingly important for students to apply for financial aid. However, many students are unaware of the benefits of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). We launched a field experiment with a non-profit organization to explore how both informational- and testimonial-type text messages impacted FAFSA application rates. 2,236 potential students were randomized into three groups: a control group that focused on reminders for upcoming deadlines, a treatment group that focused on benefits-framed messaging, and a second treatment group that combined the benefit messages with testimonial messages. Each group received 8 text messages from late September 2020 to early March 2021. Though both treatment groups were significantly better at motivating FAFSA applications than the control, the condition with benefits-framed and testimonial messages was the most effective. Participants in this condition were 87% more likely to make a FAFSA appointment than the control group.

(De)Glossing Financial Aid: Do Colleges and Universities Actually Use Financial Student Aid Jargon?

Decades of research has suggested that completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) can be a complex, difficult process for postsecondary students and their support networks. However, no extant research has informed federal student aid practitioners and researchers as to what federal student aid jargon terms institutions of higher education actually use in their application instructions to complete the FAFSA. To fill this gap in the research, this study adopts a distributional linguistic approach to analyze a random sample of federal student aid application instructions published on institutional websites (.edu) over three years (2017, 2018, and 2019) to learn how prevalent Federal Student Aid (FSA) Glossary terms are and what terms are used most frequently. Results suggest few of the 152 FSA Glossary terms have been regularly used by institutions of higher education from 2017 to 2019, with the most frequent terms being FAFSA, loan, federal student aid, FSA ID, and scholarship. In addition, many institutions only used one or two FSA Glossary terms over three years, bringing into question the accuracy and relevance of the FSA Glossary. Implications for research, financial aid administration, and financial aid policy are addressed.

Disproportionate Burden: Estimating the Cost of FAFSA Verification for Public Colleges and Universities

Verification is a federally mandated process that requires selected students to further attest that the information reported on their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is accurate and complete. In this brief, we estimate institutional costs of administrating the FAFSA verification mandate and consider variation in costs by institution type and sector. Using data from 2014, we estimate that compliance costs to institutions in that year totaled nearly US$500 million with the burden falling disproportionately on public institutions and community colleges, in particular. Specifically, we estimate that 22% of an average community college’s financial aid office operating budget is devoted to verification procedures, compared with 15% at public 4-year institutions. Our analysis is timely, given that rates of FAFSA verification have increased in recent years.

How Have FAFSA Submissions Differed During COVID-19?

We examine changes in California’s FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) applications during the COVID-19 crisis. There was little change in applications for high school graduates due to an early deadline for state aid. After the deadline—from early March to mid-August—FAFSA applications of potential college freshmen declined 14%, relative to prior years. Although there were initial declines in applications among more experienced undergraduates and graduate students, these quickly rebounded and were 8% higher relative to prior years. FAFSA applications increased more in counties that had larger increases in unemployment insurance claims but declined more in zip codes that were lower income or were more heavily Black and Hispanic.

The Hidden Costs of Corroboration: Estimating the Effects of Financial Aid Verification on College Enrollment

Every year, the U.S. Department of Education selects hundreds of thousands of low-income students to provide additional documentation to corroborate their financial aid eligibility in a process known as verification. Although many are concerned about the potential deleterious effects of being selected, to date, studies are limited to descriptive analyses. To fill this gap in the literature, we use population-level, multicohort data to estimate the effects of financial aid verification on initial college enrollment for recent high school graduates in Tennessee. An entropy balance weighting approach indicates that students selected for verification are 3.8 percentage points (4.9%) less likely to enroll in college with underserved populations and late Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) filers most negatively affected.

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.

Six Easy Steps: Do Aspiring College Students Understand How to Apply for Financial Aid?

In 2009, President Obama called for a simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), resulting in the average family completing the FAFSA in 20 minutes. Yet, during the 2013-2014 college application season, nearly 900,000 Pell Grant-eligible high school graduates did not complete the FAFSA, leaving $2.9 billion in Pell Grant funds unclaimed (Sen-Gupta, 2015). Subsequently, researchers have investigated the hurdles of FAFSA completion, however, no extant research has examined whether institutional financial aid application instructions are readable, an element of the application process which seems logical to scrutinize. This study examines financial aid application instructions of 300 randomly-selected U.S. institutions to answer the primary research question, “At what reading comprehension level do institutions compose financial aid application instructions?” Findings indicate 75% of financial aid application instructions are unreadable by high school graduates of average reading comprehension ability, with 41% of instructions written at or above a 14th-grade reading comprehension level. Implications for practitioners and future research are addressed.

Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream by Sara Goldrick-Rab

Reviewed by: Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream by Sara Goldrick-Rab Abdul B. Abad Sara Goldrick-Rab. Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 368 pp. Cloth: $27.50. ISBN: 9780226404349 In Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, author Sara Goldrick-Rab explores the college affordability crisis and the new economics of higher education. More specifically, Goldrick-Rab rejects the assumption that if a young person works hard enough, they will be able to get a college degree and become upwardly mobile (“move up the socioeconomic ladder”). Popular explanations of why students do not finish college assume it is to due personal failure such as a lack of resilience, time management, and intelligence. Goldrick-Rab attempts to show that the reason that low-income students do not complete college is because college is too expensive even with various forms of financial aid. The author utilizes a mixed-methods longitudinal study of 3,000 students over six years and includes data collection activities such as lengthy surveys with payments for participation, legal agreements to collect administrative data from public colleges and universities, and fifty in-depth in-person interviews. The book closely follows the experience of six students. Goldrick-Rab begins her argument in Chapter 1 by historically framing college affordability (specifically how states spend less on public higher education and how the price of college rose), the Pell Grant, and federal accountability. The author notes that colleges that charge $60,000 or $8,000 a year can both receive Pell Grants (p. 16). The original intention of the Pell Grant was for students to not have to take out loans, yet the maximum Pell Grant amount for 2016 is $5,815, which is a small fraction of a $60,000 college cost. In Chapter 2, Goldrick-Rab discusses contributing factors to the cost and price of a college education.. Moreover, what is not included in the federal calculation is basic expenses incurred by family and money they miss in the short term (p. 40). Tuition and fees are not the biggest drivers of college costs, but living costs, transportation, books and supplies, and personal expenses are important. Even if tuition costs are frozen, says Goldrick-Rab, these living costs are not. Hence, freezing tuition and fees costs do not succeed in solving the issue. A strength of Goldrick-Rab’s work is that she uses historical data, quantitative data from the unprecedented study, and the stories of six students to make her points. In other words, it is tough to imagine how compelling this argument might be for public audiences [End Page E-7] without the combination of mixed-methods. Quantitative data can be convincing, but they do not give the same in-depth human perspective one gets from interviews. Chapter 3 investigates how the concern of over borrowing from financial aid sources rests on the hypothesis that actual costs reported are less than the stated cost of attendance, but this is inaccurate because of rising living costs. What the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) does best is sort between the wealthy and middle class instead of between the lower-middle class and working class (p. 46). On the student end, it can be difficult to understand exactly where the money comes from. Since money moves through financial aid offices to a complicated funding package, Pell recipients often refer to grants as “free.” Goldrick-Rab points out that “for taxpayers’ grants are not free” (p. 60). In Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5, I am reminded of Matthew Desmond’s (2016) Evicted, which explores the complex lives of Milwaukee’s poor and how seemingly insignificant actions could result in a cycle of poverty and eviction. Goldrick-Rab’s book gives us a glimpse into the lives of low-income students to support the claim that “[t]he study of financial aid in isolation, therefore, cannot tell us how money and scarcity shape the college experience. Only research on money as it is actually possessed and used...

Nudging Students Beyond the FAFSA: The Impact of University Outreach on Financial Aid Behaviors and Outcomes

A growing body of research indicates that proactive outreach from high schools and college access organizations about college preparation tasks, and specifically focusing on completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), results in increased college enrollment. Comparatively less attention has been paid to the role of colleges and universities in this outreach and outreach relating to additional financial aid barriers that students face while applying to college, such as the CSS PROFILE form. In this article we investigated, through an inter-university collaboration, the effect of sending targeted, semi-personalized text messages to students during the college application process about important financial aid deadlines, making salient the specific forms required and prompting students to plan specific times to complete these tasks. The intervention increased CSS PROFILE filing by 3.1-4.3 percentage points, where the estimates and their significance varied depending on the comparison group. Impacts on student enrollment did not accompany these filing impacts. Results from our collaboration support the idea that colleges and universities have an important role to play in outreach to applicants relating to important financial aid tasks. The paper includes a discussion of the promises and challenges of this outreach with recommendations for practitioners.

The Distributional and Cost Implications of Negative Expected Family Contributions

Eligibility for many federal, state, and institutional financial aid programs is determined by the expected family contribution (EFC) from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which functions as a tool to ration scarce aid dollars. The lowest possible EFC under current rules is zero, but this obscures a wider distribution of family resources that would be partially uncovered if the EFC formula were not truncated at zero and negative values were allowed. In this paper, I estimate negative EFCs using student-level data from nine colleges and universities between the 2007-08 and 2011-12 academic year. I find a large amount of dispersion in the distribution of negative EFCs for dependent students and that between 20% and 90% of students (varying by whether the student files the full FAFSA or qualifies for a Simplified FAFSA or an automatic zero EFC) would qualify for a larger Pell Grant award if negative EFCs were allowed. Additional costs of funding a negative EFC could range from $1.6 billion to $7.2 billion per year, depending on assumptions regarding generosity.

The Answer Is Yes

Objective: The study assesses the impact of dual enrollment participation on remediation and completion for traditional first time, full-time freshmen at a community college in Northeast Tennessee. Method: This study began with the full population of 1,232 students who enrolled between 2008 and 2012 at a community college in northeast Tennessee the fall semester after finishing high school. The population was required to have American College Testing (ACT) scores, completely fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), enroll full-time as a degree-seeking student, and complete the first fall semester. Propensity score matching was utilized to eliminate self-selection bias and enable parametric comparisons using optimal matching of dual enrollment participants and non-participants while controlling for a range of covariates. Results: The analyses showed that community college students who participated in dual enrollment were (a) 9% or nearly 3.4 times less likely to take remediation, (b) 26% or nearly 2.5 times more likely to graduate in 2 years, and (c) 28% or nearly 1.5 times more likely to graduate in 3 years. Contributions: This study contributes to the literature showing that dual enrollment reduces remediation rates and assists in timely completions for community college students. Policy recommendations are to increase equitable participation, normalize dual enrollment for students academically able to do college coursework, align state terminology with the nation, and improve data for future research.

Customized Nudging to Improve FAFSA Completion and Income Verification

For most students from low- or moderate-income families, successfully completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a crucial gateway on the path to college access. Yet, researchers have long recognized that the complexity of the FAFSA can serve as a barrier to students applying for — and in turn receiving — financial aid. We investigate the impact of a texting campaign specifically to address the informational and behavioral barriers associated with initial FAFSA filing. We advance beyond prior work by designing a texting system that leveraged regularly-updated administrative data on the status of students’ FAFSA submissions to provide students with personalized outreach and updates on their FAFSA completion status. Students were able to write back for one-on-one, text-based assistance. We implemented the intervention in two distinct locations. In partnership with a set of eight school districts in Texas that together serve over 17,000 high school seniors, we tested the impact of this intervention through a school-level randomized trial. In partnership with the state of Delaware, we offered the text-based outreach to all high school seniors in Delaware public high schools, and we tested the impact of this statewide effort using a quasi-experimental matching strategy. Evidence from both sites indicates that the text-based outreach serves to improve FAFSA filing outcomes. In Delaware, rates of FAFSA completion were improved overall. In Texas, students filed the FAFSA earlier as a result of the outreach. In Texas, where we are able to observe subsequent college enrollment, the outreach impacted immediate college matriculation by four percentage points. We consider two potential mechanisms beyond simply completing the FAFSA through which the intervention could have improved rates of college enrollment. First, as a result of earlier filing, students may have accessed more generous financial aid. Second, the messaging may have made more salient the income verification process for the sizeable share of filers selected for verification. Earlier filing also may have afforded these students more time to navigate the verification process. We provide evidence to support both of these potential channels.