How to Increase FAFSA Completion in Your Metro Area

Posted by Kresge Foundation on February 19, 2018

New Report and Webinar: How to Increase FAFSA Completion in Your Metro Area

A new report, “Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees: How 22 Cities Helped High School Students Complete More FAFSAs and Get More Financial Aid Dollars,” details the best practices and lessons learned from the FAFSA Completion Challenge grant initiative, a partnership of The Kresge Foundation and the National College Access Network (NCAN).

An upcoming webinar, created to help metro-areas and other stakeholders increase FAFSA completions in their own communities, will include discussion of the report’s findings and recommendations. Click here to register for the webinar, which will be hosted on February 21 at 3 p.m. Eastern by NCAN and Higher Ed Insight, the evaluators for the FAFSA Completion Challenge grant initiative.

The initiative was designed to support metro-wide efforts to increase FAFSA completion among high school seniors during the 2016-17 school year. Of the 22 cities selected to participate, 10 achieved an increase in their completion rates increase by more than 5 percentage points, and only four cities saw a drop in their completion rates. The average FAFSA completion rate for high school seniors in these cities increased to 54.6 percent, and three cities reached completion rates above 60%.

https://kresge.org/library/report-money-doesnt-grow-trees