Note: This interview originally aired on September 29, 2022 as a Chronicle of Higher Education Virtual Event. The transcript of this event is intended to serve as a guide to the entire conversation, and we encourage you to watch on demand. You can also access our summary.
[Start of recorded material 00:00:00]
Ian Wilhelm:
Welcome everyone and thanks for joining us today for what is sure to be a dynamic discussion about innovation in financial aid. I'm one of your co-hosts for today and excited to be here. I'm Ian Wilhelm from the Chronicle of Higher Education. And my co-host Bridget is going to join us in a second.
Bridget Burns:
Hi there everyone. I'm happy to join you today as the co-host from the University Innovation Alliance. My name is Bridget Burns.
Ian Wilhelm:
Today we're going to hear from experts from various vantage points, discussing innovative practices in financial aid, including completion grants. This topic is very timely, because financial burdens keep many students from finishing their studies and earning a degree, as we all know. I think an interesting fact here to share is according to a 2021 survey conducted by the National Student Clearinghouse, 42% of adults, that's 42% of adults aged 20 to 34, dropped out of college due to financial reasons.
Bridget Burns:
This topic's very timely because of those burdens, but we'll be discussing in particular what we've learned from the past few years: how innovation needs to keep up, how it has kept up, the most promising practices that are going to be useful. But we also just need to talk about the financial challenges that students are facing today, what the field is wrestling with, what's promising. And as part of this webinar, one exciting thing is that we'll be sharing a playbook that was created by the University Innovation Alliance on one particular financial aid intervention called completion grants. You're going to hear a bit about it.
And for those who don't know, the University Innovation Alliance is a multi-campus laboratory for student success innovation. And we scale up proven practices across the country. And in the process, we figure out how to do it better, how to do it faster, how to do it less expensively, and we create really valuable tools for the field to use, so that no matter what institution you are at, you are able to innovate and do the best job you can for your students.
So as part of that, we conducted a longer term, I think it was a three year project, implementing completion grants with support from Ascendium, which is supporting today's webinar, and the Gates Foundation, and created this really valuable playbook that is going to be freely available to you. You can download it and use it as you wish. We already know that just using the playbook alone works.
We've had campuses, as recently as six months ago, let us know that they were able to implement completion grants for hundreds of thousands of dollars for their students in about two months time, just using the step-by-step process, the templates and the tools. So just know that that's part of the bonus of joining us today. But what we want to do is make sure that we talk about why you would even consider that, and I think the next person we're going to bring on is the perfect person to share with us the value of completion grants and exactly how or why one would want to use them.
Ian Wilhelm:
Yeah, and just a reminder, everybody, we will be sharing that playbook that Bridget mentioned in the chat, but also sending it out to everyone in an email afterwards, just so you can get a copy of that and dive deeper into it. But as Bridget mentioned, let's bring on the stage Dr. Tim Renick, the executive director of the National Institute for Student Success at Georgia State. Certainly a very well respected source here in the newsroom at the Chronicle, and the person who first discovered the practice many institutions are using in higher ed today, and that is, again, completion grants. Tim, welcome to the program.
Tim Renick:
Thank you, Ian, great to be here.
Ian Wilhelm:
Yeah, I really appreciate it. And first, can you share what completion grants are, and why are they're so sort of dynamic and changing for what the field has done traditionally?
Tim Renick:
Yeah, a little context here, is the last recession hit Atlanta really hard. And over a four or five year period, we doubled the number of Pell eligible students we were enrolling. So we moved from a campus that was under a third Pell eligible at the undergraduate level, to one that was almost 60%. And we began to see a phenomena that was uncharacteristic. And that was more and more of our seniors were dropping out in their senior year.
When we drilled down and looked at the data, what we found was happening is because we enrolled many, many more low income students, we were having a problem with students running out of financial support before they crossed the finish line. Georgia State has a majority transfer student population at the undergraduate level. 80% of our students work. And so it's difficult to graduate in exactly four years, but we're in a state, the state of Georgia, that has a state scholarship program that provides support for tuition and fees for students who qualify for four years, and not a moment more.
So we had perfectly qualified seniors who were walking away from the university, in effect never to return, just close to the finish line. So in 2011 we began to pilot a program, requires no application on the student's part, and we can talk more about why that's an integral ingredient in this program. The students don't have to apply. We're identifying students who have exhausted their aid, who have genuine unmet need, who are close to graduating, and who are making good academic progress towards their degree. And what we started to do is just put the money in their accounts to prevent them from stopping or dropping out for financial reasons.
The first semester we supported 40 students. Now we're supporting between two and three thousand students every year, mostly seniors, preventing them from stopping out in the first instance, by proactively identifying the need they have, and putting the money in the student's account. And that in essence is what a completion grant is, at least as we interpret it at Georgia State.
Bridget Burns:
So now that you have ... The completion grant concept is something that we are just hearing about in terms of why this is such a strategic use of the existing time, energy, and resources we have at our institutions. It takes a small amount of money. And your persuasive explanation of this and the data that you've shared publicly has been really powerful in influencing campuses to adopt completion grants, including the Alliance campuses. I'm wondering if, as the person who came up with it, somewhat the architect, what have you learned that you want to make sure to impart upon the audience today from watching and supporting institutions, scaling this into a variety of different contexts, centralized, decentralized, different governance structures, all the things, what are the things that really stood out to you?
Tim Renick:
Yeah, it's a great question. Context does matter. I am of the belief that there's not a single post-secondary institution which couldn't benefit from the program, at least at some scale. There are always some students running out of aid who are really good candidates for completion. And the reality is most of our campuses, and Georgia State was very much in this category, have very little or no resources targeted for students late in their degree programs. It's all about stacking scholarships for incoming students or for the very best students. And those students who may be good candidates for completing a degree, maybe not stellar scholars and are in their senior year, there was very little available. But we did see that, for instance, some states have better wraparound financial supports for students than others. And if your state has that better wraparound support, this program may not need to be scaled at the same level.
The other lesson we learned, and it ties back to a point I alluded to a moment ago, is there are a lot of programs that fall under the umbrella of completion grants. And some of them have been shown to be effective, some of them less so. What I think is a critical ingredient is that you do not make the student apply. It frustrates me no end that we ask students to produce information and data that we already have about the student. In the case of our completion grant program, what we're looking for are students who have unmet need, who are close to graduating, who are making good academic progress, and who have exhausted their aid.
Well, all four of those points we know. So to have a student have to come in and fill out an application to give us information we already know about the student, not only minimizes the impact of the program, because only a subset of students will go through those bureaucratic steps, but I can assure you by the data, that the students who go through the bureaucratic steps will not be the most deserving ones. Because almost by definition they're more empowered, they're better connected, they have the bandwidth in their day to actually go through these administrative steps. So it's a critical component that we take some ownership as colleges and universities and say, "We know which students need this help. Let's not wait till they stop out." Because once the student stops out, the data is devastating about what the outcomes will be.
Ian Wilhelm:
Well Tim, I think there's a great point about reducing or eliminating those bureaucratic steps. And certainly that's something we'll probably dive deeper into as we talk about other financial aid processes within the systems. I do want to talk to you. You mentioned you sort had some breaking news or at least brand new data, relatively new, I should say, sort of about the success of the program. Could you share a little bit about that, summarize it quickly and show where you're at right now?
Tim Renick:
Yeah, the Chronicle gets a scoop here because we haven't shared this publicly yet. But we've just run a longitudinal study looking at almost 75,000 Georgia State undergraduates between 2013 and 2021. And we asked a very simple question, "What is the difference between success rates, completion and graduation rates, for students that throughout their academic career never had to stop out for a financial reason, versus those that did?" They had to miss a semester either because we put a hold on their accounts for financial reasons, or we dropped them from their registered classes because they couldn't pay their tuition and fees. And the numbers are really sobering. Across Georgia State, if a student never has to stop out financially, they're graduating on time at a 70% clip. The students who had to stop out even for a single semester are graduating at a little above a 20% clip.
So we're talking about a 50 percentage point difference between these two groups. So the next question we asked in this longitudinal study is, "Well, let's just focus on our seniors. If a student has reached senior standing, what is the difference between a student who might have to stop out in their senior year for financial reasons, and their chances of graduating, versus those students who don't have to stop out for financial reasons?" Over 80% of the students who don't have to stop out for financial reasons are getting their degrees from Georgia State, a little under 30%. Again, that 50% gap even in the senior year of the seniors who stop out for financial reasons, are not getting their degrees.
So one last data point we've added. How about those students who in their senior year get the Panther Retention grant, the completion grant that we have. We've done that for thousands of students over the period for the longitudinal study. And what happens is for an average grant of about a thousand dollars, the graduation rates for those students go right back up to 80%. So it doesn't partially fill the outcome gap, it completely fills the outcome gap. It's logical because these students in effect are not stopping out. They're seniors who are not stopping out, because we proactively provide the money to keep them enrolled.
And I just ask the audience, do you know of other uses of institutional aid where for a thousand dollars you can change the outcomes from a 30% graduation rate to an 80% graduation rate? It's a highly intensive and efficient use of institutional aid. And that's why it's been shown by a number of studies to actually have a positive ROI. You invest a little bit in these students, not only do they graduate at much higher rates, which has a big moral payout, but actually the institution generates more revenue by holding onto these students who otherwise are walking away with only 30% ever to return again. So it actually provides better financial resources. It's in effect the fiscally selfish thing to do, at the same time it's the morally right thing to do.
Ian Wilhelm:
Well, I appreciate the scoop, Tim.
Tim Renick:
My pleasure.
Bridget Burns:
Always great to break some news, but also I think that's the perfect information for us to go into this conversation about how we can leverage this idea that is consistently showing that it works, and has been spreading. But also kind of widening the conversation, and talk about other innovative practices, and what are the things that get in the way of innovation that we need to be dealing with, and what things we can learn coming out of COVID, or out of the pandemic. So now we're going to be joined by an expert group who are going to be rounding out that discussion. And I'm delighted to introduce them.
We'll be joined by Dr. Jessica Rowland Williams, who's the director of Every Learner Everywhere, and also served as the project director for the completion grants initiative for the UIA back in the day, before taking on her leadership position now. Dr. Sharon Perry Fantini, the Vice Provost for Equity Access and Opportunity at Iowa State University, which is a campus that has really grabbed on to completion grants and been pushing things further in terms of how they can serve their students. And we also have Kim Cook, who is the CEO of the National College Attainment Network or NCAN. We are delighted for her to bring a perspective around how we need to have these more complex conversations, including a variety of other factors, including how we serve students on the front end with access. And we also have Tony Erwin, who is a principal consultant with Blue Icon Advisors, which is a part of NASFAA, the National Association that all the financial aid advisors are part of. So we're really delighted to have expertise really spanning the landscape today.
Ian Wilhelm:
And we really look forward to hearing from all our panelists. Just to say it out loud to the audience, we look forward to hearing from all of you as well. Please do use the Q and A function to send those questions and comments. We don't have a monopoly of expertise up here, so we look forward to hearing from your points of view on this topic. And Bridget, I'm going to toss it to you for the first question to our panel.
Bridget Burns:
So Kim, I wanted to just be able to acknowledge that there's a lot of complex conversation happening right now relative to not just financial aid and college access, but there's also this entirely separate conversation happening around loan forgiveness. And I just wanted to ask if you could contextualize for us that when we're looking from the lens of financial aid, and that conversation is happening nationally, how you would advise us to look about at it, and how we can put it in perspective with today's discussion?
Kim Cook:
Sure, happy to do that. Thanks for the opportunity. This is, as you mentioned, and as we will all echo I'm sure, a complex situation. There's policy at the federal level, at the state level, as well as the institutional level. So capital-P Policy and lowercase-P policy at play here for students. Only 23% of BA granting institutions are affordable to the average Pell Grant recipient. And I think that's important framing as we think about need-based aid that includes completion grants, that includes Pell grants. And as you asked on the loan forgiveness piece, that is a legacy of a system that has not prioritized need-based aid for students. So I think all of these factors come together. I look forward to the conversation about that. And I'll say to Tim that when we look at the title of today's session, institutions responding with need-based aid shouldn't really have to go under the innovative title, but it's less prevalent than we hoped it is. So I hope we get to have some conversation about that.
Ian Wilhelm:
Thanks, Kim, I appreciate that. And Jessica, I was going to bring you to the conversation because when leading the completion grant scaling as you did at UIA, when it came to working on new financial aid innovations or changes or improvements, what challenges surprised you, that we in the audience out here might overlook? What was easier perhaps also than you expected, in terms of making those changes?
Jessica Rowland Williams:
Yeah, I think Tim really got us started off when he said context matters. Right? Institutional policies, institutional practices, financial aid policies at the state level, student demographics, existing aid on the campus, all these things play into how you maximize the effectiveness of a program. One thing people always say is the devil really is in the details. And we found that that was true in these implementation processes. I think one of the things that is a benefit and such a value of this work, is that we've had the opportunity to really work through what questions need to be asked on the front end, so that you can set up a program that's going to impact your students and meet them where those needs are. One of the things that you heard Tim saying is that like, "Hey, we met our students exactly where the need was." Right?
And these were data-informed decisions that drove these significant outcomes. And I think this playbook that Bridget alluded to is just so pivotal and such an important asset to the field, because you don't have to guess how to get that information. You don't have to guess what questions to ask. This work has answered those questions for institutions. And so you're really coming in knowing. Some of the challenges that surprised me are things like the fact that students with the most amount of financial need aren't always the students that need the completion grant. A lot of times on campuses, those students are covered with the existing financial aid. And so, one of the things that we learned through this work is it's important to, again, really look at the data and see what the data are showing you around where that need exists. Maybe it's in an EFC band that you weren't expecting, and again, that can inform how you design your completion grant program.
Another thing that we've really got to pay attention to are transfer students and returning students, because those are the students that really, they've already exhausted that financial aid. They don't have a lot of money to tap into. And a lot of times they fly under the radar when it comes to existing aid programs. The one thing that surprised me that was easier was just, I think the fact that institutions are so eager and engaged in wanting to implement these types of programs, and don't always have the information. It's not for lack of good intent, it's just that the information is not always out there. It's hard to know where to start. And so, again, that's why this project is so important and this resource is such a value to the field.
Ian Wilhelm:
I hear you on that, Jessica. Thanks for the answer.
Bridget Burns:
And Sharon, I wanted to bring you into the conversation. Now, Iowa State University, which is one of the Alliance campuses, really took this idea. You learned about the completion grant from Georgia State and Tim sharing. And as part of that project that we've heard Jessica just describe, you really kind of took the ball and ran with it. And the thing I want to bring in is the idea of seeking out unlikely partners. Now, at Iowa State, you had initial resources that were provided by philanthropy, but because the idea worked so well and the stories that were surfaced of your students who are so grateful to be supported, the president of Iowa State was able to raise another million dollars from an unlikely space, which was the athletics department. And I'm just wondering what Iowa State would share with other campuses about why you think it took off so well and what advice would you provide to look for that kind of unlikely additional allies or support?
Sharon Perry Fantini:
Thank you for that question. So much of this work was done prior to my arrival, but I can say one thing that I learned when I was going through the whole interview process at Iowa State, they kept using the word collaborative over and over again. "We collaborate, we collaborate." And we can say that all day, but they truly took the word collaboration and elevated that with this particular opportunity. I understand the commitment came directly from President Wintersteen and her leadership, and she elevated that need. She went to the foundation, which we typically do not tap into foundation or alums. They're the people over there in the corner. They're doing their own thing. But understanding the students that we are trying desperately to serve so that they do have an opportunity to be successful, eventually will be part of your foundation and your alumni. So taking this message to them, the donors supported the creation of this, not only campus wide, but individually in our individual colleges. So we could really target students at that granular level that they were at, to be able to help them and provide that need.
And Bridget is absolutely right. Ultimately this call for action, the athletic department contributed a million dollars over the next five years for the completion grants of our students. So when they mention the word collaboration, Iowa State truly is working collectively across the institutional enterprise to make sure the students are successful. So thank you for that question.
Bridget Burns:
Well, I also want to bring in actual, financial aid, most of us don't actually work in this space, so Tony, I'm really hoping that you can give us perspective from the folks who are on the ground, who are doing this work and what they're struggling with right now. I know in terms of, they share the experience everyone else has of not being able to hire people, overwhelm, burnout, all of those things. But I'm wondering, given what you just heard from Jessica about what was surprising and how an example like Iowa State being able to really run with it, what kinds of things get in the way of innovation when we're talking about financial aid that we also need to put on the table for today's discussion?
Tony Erwin:
Bridget, thank you so much for the opportunity to participate. We're hearing from Sharon about a really very innovative source of funding, from Jessica and earlier from Tim, about the opportunity for institutions to use information that they have or to design systems and processes that really don't put additional barriers in place for students when trying to distribute certainly completion grants, or you could extend that to traditional need-based aid. It's the same concept. If I were to think about or to articulate what I see as one of the biggest barriers to that, it's really resources defined a bit more broadly. So not just the money to distribute, but the capacity to build those systems to interact with students, which is a very labor-intensive process. Resources that include also the development of the professionals who have the both capacity, interests, tools, and in some cases invitation from their institutions, to participate in conversations about innovation.
So when I think about one of the biggest barriers, really resource is defined quite broadly. And resources include really in the minimum, sometimes the invitation. And we heard from financial aid professionals throughout the pandemic that many were invited to talk about the work that they do and how they support overall institutional goals, in a different way than they had been ever invited to do so before. Many did not feel prepared to do that, because they were very focused on delivery of aid and student service in relatively traditional ways, largely face to face, or in some cases email and phone conversations. But the opportunity to express kind of the challenges of complying with regulation of interacting with students and families, gathering information, delivering funds, but also to think innovative, to innovate, needs the space and capacity and invitation to ideate. And many aid professionals report, even during the pandemic, right before the great resignation started, many of them felt they did not have the invitation or capacity to do those things, and in some cases the skills.
And now, certainly as aid offices, as many institutional offices have constricted when it comes to staffing shortages, they feel even less opportunity to innovate, because more and more focus is going on just meeting the minimum requirements of delivering aid, and compliant with federal student aid program requirements. And so you kind have this intersection where there was this taste and opportunity to start thinking differently. And now unfortunately, you've got the reality of workloads in many institutions where those folks, even who had started to have that interest and capacity and some success in those things, have had to constrict their thinking a bit. So I would say resources are a great big barrier, and not just resources of the money to distribute, but the infrastructure and beyond.
Bridget Burns:
That's great.
Ian Wilhelm:
And Tony, I appreciate that point about the broader resources and those challenges. And we certainly, here at the Chronicle, have heard so much about the hiring shortages that you sort alluded to as being one of the many across the board for administrative roles and staff roles. Tim, I was going to bring you in quickly to actually double up here and ask you two questions. We do have an audience question here coming in from several folks asking about the size of the completion grants. For example, a viewer Barbara says, "Are all completion grants a thousand dollars or do you give at different levels based on that unmet need?"
I want you to take that question, but then I want to ask, go into a little more of a, and more of a broader question, really, about higher ed, and the fact that this is a little bit sensitive, but we are at somewhat in a risk averse space here in higher education. It's not always known for innovation, yet you took the risk of testing this idea. I want to know, how do we get more experimentation, from your perspective? So two questions there. One on the size of the completion grants and how they may vary. And then, of course, this broader question of how do we just get our institutions to experiment in this space where traditionally there may not have been as much experimentation?
Tim Renick:
Yeah. So the answer to the first question is the size of the grants vary. As we launched the program in 2011, the grants were up to fifteen hundred dollars, but in some cases it only took two or three hundred dollars to keep a student enrolled who otherwise might drop out. And we respond to the level of grant they need to keep them enrolled. This is a program that doesn't focus on all the living expenses and so forth. It's really targeted on paying their university bill so they don't get barred from enrollment.
Ian Wilhelm:
Got it.
Tim Renick:
Since the program's been so successful and the ROI was determined to be positive, we've actually expanded and now these grants are up to $2,500. As far as the innovation is concerned, I'll say this, that we've never at Georgia State set out to do something innovative. That is not the goal. What we've done is look at our data, find a problem for which there is not an existing solution, because we're the first to adopt something that's already proven and successful out there. And in cases where we can't find something that works, that's when we begin to innovate.
And what we've done very carefully, in part because we're aware of deep levels of skepticism about innovation in higher education, is make sure when we launch that we do careful tracking of data so that we can show what works and what doesn't. I think sometimes we underestimate what a skeptical task we have to innovate in higher education, because our audience is a group of well-educated, some critics might say overly-educated, faculty and staff, who believe very strongly that they know what works and what doesn't work. So to convince that group, you really have to collect data on a careful basis, and we try to design our initial pilots in order to do just that.
Ian Wilhelm:
I appreciate that point about that. It's not innovation for innovation's sake, and certainly we've heard that elsewhere. It's about helping students, ultimately, who are ooking for that. And I add to that audience a group of some skeptical journalists out there as well that may occasionally look at this stuff too. But Bridget, over to you.
Bridget Burns:
Well, yeah, there's plenty to be hopeful about, I think. But I think that's the right context of making sure that you tell the story, you share the data, and you give people a chance to be compelled. I think that when people talk about the completion grant, the thing that I've always found to be the most persuasive is the very logical explanation that you give, Tim, which is the first thing that happens when you put the money in their account, the first person they pay is you. They pay their tuition. That's a financial sustainability strategy. That is just so, wow, yeah, that's pretty clear. So sometimes it's very simple clarity like that, which will be helpful.
So I also want to move on to Kim, who, you don't just engage with folks in financial aid, college access, the various nonprofits who are trying to actually get more students to come to college, and be more informed, and do it in a way that will make them more likely to complete. So as an expert leader in this space, I want to know what you see as being the most important work that our sector needs to advance, kind of inside financial aid, and what outside supports for that change are needed that don't currently exist.
And you are muted.
Kim Cook:
Apologies. Yes, it is a multi-part question. I'll try to give my briefest multi-part answer. Within the sector, I think undoubtedly we need to be focused on need-based aid. Federally that means investing in the Pell Grant. We advocate for doubling the Pell Grant to restore its purchasing power to its original intent. Statewide that's focusing on need first, not merit, that some states prioritize. It's politically popular, but to the detriment of students completing.
And then just raising the investment that states make. And similarly for institutions, that same focus on need first and increasing investment where that's possible in institutional budgets. Outside support, this takes political will. This certainly takes a country to decide that this is a priority for equity, and for competitiveness both. And then what do we need to change? I would briefly say as the completion grants did, we need to listen to student voice. We need to hear what our students are saying, and appreciate the experiences and the challenges that they're having, and look at the data to inform the affordability issues happening.
Bridget Burns:
I think that is the right framing that we need to consider in this moment. I want to bring us back then to, we're not just talking about affordability and access, we also need to be thinking about the outcomes from an equity lens. And understanding how we need to serve all students, and not just thinking that that low-income students are a monolith. So Jessica, I want to bring you back in. You've shepherded this complex financial aid innovation, collaborative work. But now you're focused on helping institutions produce more equitable outcomes using digital learning. And I'm just wondering if there is anything those two things have in common, these similar challenges between these two distinct spaces. We heard about the impediments to innovation. We heard about risk averse and fear of change. So I'm just wondering if in the equity and digital learning space you think there might be something as well?
Jessica Rowland Williams:
Absolutely. I think one big question that we keep asking ourselves, and we ask in both spaces is, how do we embed equity in the solution-building process and not just look for equity in the outcomes? And when we're talking about embedding equity in solution-building, what we're really talking about is shifting power, shifting responsibility, and shifting ownership in ways that we don't traditionally view it. And I think Tim gave an excellent example of how that happens in the completion grant process when he said, "We're not asking students to apply. We already have the information that we need. We're going to take ownership for identifying the students with the most need."
And I know a way that we're in our network, Every Learner Everywhere, thinking about that in building solutions for digital learning, is by inviting students into the room to co-create solutions with us. We don't release faculty playbooks unless students have read through those faculty playbooks and actually let us know, "Yeah, those things work for me." Right? And so I think that's the question we've got to start asking ourselves is not just how are we looking for equity in the outcomes, but how are we building equity into the process of solutioning, and how are we making sure that we're not just designing for students but designing with students.
Ian Wilhelm:
Thanks Jessica. Sharon, I want to bring you back into the conversation and ask somewhat of a similar question, is how do you advise institutional leaders about this question of equity, making sure to ensure that financial aid's practices and programs are helping campuses make progress on that issue? Sharon this is for you. Yeah, sorry to surprise you with it.
Sharon Perry Fantini:
I didn't catch the first part of that. Sorry about that, Ian.
Ian Wilhelm:
Oh no, no problem. Sharon, just asking you about that big question of equity. I mean obviously having you answer that in two minutes is unfair. But just how do you deal with it? How do you think about it when you're talking to other institutional leaders about making sure that the financial aid programs are having that lens of student equity?
Sharon Perry Fantini:
I think that's critical, and I want to echo what Jessica said so perfectly. And looking at that, we really need to look at this from a holistic approach, and bringing in the students into that conversation. So I was reading just recently, I believe it's called Generation Z Goes to College. Interesting book, if you haven't read it. It's really good. But in the book, a student actually said and shared, "I would like to be able to attend college to better contribute to society, without financially ruining myself with a mountain of debt." And that came directly from a student. So understanding those, and realizing the differences, and the students that we're serving today is critical.
We're no longer servicing the typical student that we have historically serviced. When we think about an 18 year old living in a residence hall, traditional family, mom and pop back at home are paying for my expenses and giving me some Cyclone dollars, if you will. Those students, even though they still exist, a majority of our students that we're seeing today, over 40% are students of color, are students that have children. And of the students that have children, 90% of those are living at the federal poverty level. So yes, we really need to take that into consideration. And I think our number one step, and something we may not have always done, is including the voice of the student. They know what their needs are, they know what they're expecting from us. We know what their goals are, or they would not be on our college campuses. And we just need to do a better job of making sure we're approaching this from a holistic approach.
Bridget Burns:
That's super great. We're going to go to one last question that we were hoping to ask, but then we have a bunch of really great audience questions that are about the execution of completion grants, about the tactical strategy on the ground. So I'm just hoping we'll kind of popcorn around in a second. But first, Tony, we can't have this conversation and not acknowledge that because of federal relief dollars, campuses got to experiment with emergency aid as well. So we've talked a lot about completion grants, which I hope that if given the chance, Tim can also talk about the connection between chatbots and how those can be useful in terms of helping students answer questions for financial aid. So we're talking about innovative practices. But I think that a lot of campuses came up with new ways to do things because of the gift that those federal relief dollars provided. What did NASFAA, supporting all these financial administrators, what did you take from that, in terms of what can be done and where we need to innovate?
Tony Erwin:
Bridget, thank you. There are ... Part of the story of innovation in during COVID for the aid office really started with kind of meeting institutions where they were. There were some offices that really were well-connected and had the opportunity for staff to continue remote work immediately, had opportunity for submission of electronic forms, processing continued, student service was already being offered in virtual platforms. But that was really not the majority. Right? So the majority of institutions are structured relatively traditionally.
We worked with ... As we chatted with institutions across the country at the very beginning of the pandemic, more than 70% told us they had no business continuity plan for their aid office and no ability to do any process remotely at all. Right? So you've got that starting point for many, many institutions. And so, certainly many of the innovations that we heard about that schools were particularly proud of, was the ability to get up and running. And you can't really discount that. Right? Because you had operations that just stopped and got up and running relatively quickly, and then started to focus on student service needs.
So the ability to advise and counsel students and families virtually, in virtual platforms, was a big substantial improvement for many institutions, and also went a long way to meet students and families where they were literally. Not just figuratively, but literally, because now appointments can happen at different times of the day. Doesn't involve always the physical travel that was necessary, which was a burden for many families, both from a time and finance point of view. Just that number one piece.
I would say, second for many institutions, looking at processes that were absolutely not necessary. Again, similar to what we've heard around one of the key recommendations from Tim on the completion grants, which is don't put administrative barriers in place. Many institutions started stripping those things away around forms that had to be completed. Nine people who had to sign something for you to get approved to do something as a student. Those things started to strip away and became much more streamlined for institutions.
We saw a number of institutions ramp up more proactive student engagement opportunities as a tool to help institutions connect with students who were learning remotely unexpectedly. Right? So schools who had financial wellness or financial literacy initiatives were using those as opportunities for additional engagement for students who were now learning remotely, who were living remotely in many cases, and saw engagement on those platforms that perhaps they had not seen pre-pandemic, where they may have struggled to get students to engage on literacy or financial wellness initiatives as well.
And I think the last big thing I will focus on is the ability for and – we've talked a lot about collaboration. Sharon, you've certainly talked about that. Others have as well. The ability for aid administrators to bring that collaborative voice to campus-wide efforts to support students, also needs strong systems in place. And we saw institutions who made investments in their systems, because they found that their systems could not distribute [inaudible 00:40:11] funding the way they wanted to, or other sourced emergency grants that they wanted to. And those investments are paying off for some institutions who are now struggling with staffing, and are turning to their systems to be more efficient and to deliver more. So, just some examples of things. But institutions that we talk to are very proud in particular of ramping up efforts to meet students where they were, and then going beyond that, as part of overall institutional goals to engage with students during the disruption.
Bridget Burns:
Okay. So I feel like we've set the context around the challenges of innovation, the concept of completion grants, how we need to wrestle with equity as we're doing all this work, thinking not just in silos of financial aid, but also thinking about access, thinking about federal policy, thinking about all these other conversations happening. So now we're going to dive into the Q and A, which thank you all in the audience for. These are really good questions, so I feel like we're going to keep our panelists on their toes. So Ian, do you want to kick off what Natalie asked earliest?
Ian Wilhelm:
Yeah, we've got an attendee here, Natalie, asking, this is again a question for anyone here on the panel, but she asked, and I quote, "Did I hear correctly that the common practice is for all completion grants to go directly to the university to pay tuition, or other administrative fees? Or is there ever flexibility in how those funds are used?" So Tim, perhaps question for you or Sharon, anyone here who can sort of talk about, hey, what flexibility have you built in? Because I know you talked about it paying for university fees primarily.
Tim Renick:
Yeah, I'll start and others can chime in. But the quick answer is our program does target tuition and fees and other aspects on the university bill. We also have emergency aid for students who have issues with housing insecurities or need car repairs and so forth. But as Tony probably can attest best on the panel, it's a very much more complicated process to award students emergency aid for items that are not on their university bill, because there's an auditing trail that you need to show that the student used the money in the way that was intended.
One of the reasons we can literally award 20, excuse me, 2000 grants in a single day, is because we are awarding aid that applies directly to their university bill, and it immediately creates the audit trail that we need to show that the money was used for the purposes for which it was intended. I'll mention, too, because Tony was talking about some of the lessons learned from the pandemic, Georgia State was able to distribute over 30,000 grants from our federal emergency COVID aid within two weeks of first receiving the funds. In part because we already had these data systems set up, we didn't need to set up an application. We already knew which students were most needy from the processes we had developed for our completion grant program.
Ian Wilhelm:
Thanks, Tim. Jessica, any thoughts on that? Just the questions of, Hey, how do these completion grants, how do they change? Are they only paid for, as Tim's program does, only for those university fees that are outstanding?
Jessica Rowland Williams:
Yeah, that's pretty standard across the board.
Ian Wilhelm:
Gotcha.
Jessica Rowland Williams:
They usually pay tuition and fees and, as Tim said, emergency aid, paying for things beyond tuition and fees, that's kind of usually handled a different way.
Ian Wilhelm:
Thanks, Jessica.
Bridget Burns:
Well, while we have you, Jessica, I'll ask about how you, I mean you worked with a lot of institutions doing this, how the colleges and universities were identifying students. This is an audience question. They said we find them through advisors or faculty. You document for us an academic plan, or graduates for which they then pay for the course only. Given the nature of our campus, I believe we get a lot of false positives, if you will, meaning seniors who are seniors by means of transferring. So I don't know if you have experience with that.
Jessica Rowland Williams:
Absolutely. This was a question that came up again and again and again, for a number of reasons. How do we know they really have need? How do we know that they're not gaming the system? How do we know they're really seniors? How do we know how to pick the right people? And I don't think that there is a one right answer, but I will say what I saw that worked best is when institutions formed cross-functional teams to help identify students. So not just someone in financial aid, but someone in advising, maybe someone in student support services, so that you could ask some of those questions in real time. Yes, this person has this many credits, does that mean they're on a path to graduation? And have those conversations at one time. So that's the best practice I'd offer. But I will admit that that is a challenge to this, and there isn't a one solution to that.
Bridget Burns:
I want to just add onto that and ask Sharon. So you just heard Jessica talk about the cross-functional teams that are kind of going to be important. And I just wanted to see, because of the story that we heard from Iowa State, can you talk about what you recommend as being a different perspective of thinking about financial aid, rather than just maybe something that is maybe not in my lane?
Sharon Perry Fantini:
So I'm going to borrow just a turn quick from Leader – I'm a nerd, I love to read, okay? So, borrowing from Leadership on the Line. And something that really stuck with me is leadership will be a safe undertaking in our organizations if we only focused on problems we knew the solutions to. So that is huge in the world that we are in today. And I truly believe that we've always felt that financial aid, those are the people on the first floor in the building over there, that crunch numbers, and we don't know what they do.
So we really need to bring financial aid into the room with the other administrators to have this delicate conversation. They know what students need. They're hearing this on a daily basis. The students are coming in their office or sending them emails. And if I had to say there was a silver lining in COVID, technology has really, really helped us understand the folks in higher education, I'm picking on all of us, that we can do things different. We can do things better, and this is an opportunity to do so. So making sure that you do have that voice from the financial aid folks, with everyone else at the table, to make changes to help your students succeed.
Ian Wilhelm:
Thanks, Sharon, I appreciate that. Yeah, I want to kind of piggyback on you talking about bringing other administrators into the room. We've got some shout-outs in the Q and A from folks saying, "Hey, that's a great idea, that's exactly what we want." But also, we talked earlier about bringing the voice of students in and hearing more from them, having them involved. Both you and Jessica kind of talked about it. We have a question here from an attendee, Robert, wanting some more specifics, I guess. He says, "What specific questions are you asking students to receive their input on? What are you asking students right now? What are you interested in? What would you like to know more of from them?" And I throw out to anybody who wants to answer. Sharon, I give it to you first just to follow up. But if anyone else has a sense of what you should be asking students in order to better inform your processes within the financial aid. Are there sharper questions out there that you need to be thinking about?
Sharon Perry Fantini:
So, I know here at Iowa State what we have, and I'm sure other institutions have, too, our students are meeting with a financial literacy counselor. So they can have that deep conversation, they can go over their financial aid packages. So our students do not find themselves in a situation where they have to make some tough decisions if we didn't have the completion grants that we have.
We also need to understand that because our demographics have changed in higher education, we have to remember that cultural component. So we do have students that that cultural component is not going to allow them to feel comfortable having this delicate conversation with you, while we have other students that are going to be adamant about, "I'm not taking on more debt, and this is the reason why." So, making sure that you do have the right folks in the room, those financial aid literacy counselors or whatever you call them on your respective campuses, to have those conversations with those students.
We have to assume that our students are unaware of this complicated FAFSA system that we have. And when we're sitting down with them, we're going over what is EFC. In higher education, we throw these terms around, and we all do it, we have acronyms for everything, and we assume that our audience knows what we're talking about. So if we just take a step backwards and sit down with those students, yes, it's going to take more time. But guess what? We can use technology to have those conversations, and talk to those students about their expectations and their financial experiences, to find out where they are and where they want to go.
Ian Wilhelm:
Sharon, I appreciate that.
Sharon Perry Fantini:
And if I could just add, making sure you have the right person talking to the student is also critical.
Tim Renick:
Can I put a quick plug in as well?
Ian Wilhelm:
Please.
Tim Renick:
Bridget alluded to this a little earlier. My emphasis would be to make it easier for the students to communicate. And one way we've done so is scaling a chatbot. We launched a chatbot in 2016. It's bidirectional. It has thousands of vetted answers to questions, many about financial aid issues. We launched it in June of 2016 just for our incoming students, and had 180,000 exchanges with our students in the first three months. 70% of the questions we got on the chatbot were about financial aid. Just the type of issues that Sharon is asking about. We found the usage of the chatbot was heavier at 12:00 midnight than 9:00 in the morning.
Ian Wilhelm:
Go figure.
Tim Renick:
So one way of understanding the voice of the students is they're not completing the FAFSA when our office is open. They're completing the FAFSA after school or work or whatever, later in the day. But we also did focus groups with the students who had used the chatbot. And what we heard in exactly what Sharon was saying, is many students admitting that they asked the chatbot a question that they wouldn't have asked a human being.
Now if you don't understand this term, or a real case, if you can't get your father's taxes because you haven't seen him in the last two years, and as a result you haven't been able to complete the FAFSA, the last thing you want to do is go in and spill out your family's personal history to some stranger. The students knew it was a bot, they liked the fact that it was impersonal, nonjudgmental, they could ask questions 24/7. So we've got to lower the bar for the students being able to communicate. They don't have to wait in long lines or wait three days for an email to be responded to. And then we can give more attention to their voice.
Tony Erwin:
Tim, if I may just quick, all of the demand that that well-implemented chatbot satisfies, then frees up the opportunity, presumably for the humans to interact in those cases where you need depth. You need depth in that conversation and to develop a relationship to solve some of those problems. One of the things that we hear as we work with individual institutions to provide opportunities for improved operations and/or service is in many of those projects we have opportunities to engage with students, both in surveys and in direct dialogue. And one of the things that we've heard pretty consistently is students are relatively tired at the assumptions that are made by what their family situation is. And not just necessarily the dad who may or may not be there, the mom or whomever it may be, but also about what the burden of communication that they have is. Right?
So if the assumption is that this student comes from a relatively traditional family, whose family, parents or parent understand financial systems and just the common framework of the language, if that's the assumption, it leaves behind many students whose families don't have any foundation in just general finance. And therefore it puts a burden on the student to not just get these tasks done, but also then to interpret, in some cases, literally interpret, in other cases ... I can't think of the right word right now, but to bring that back to their family and act as intermediary.
And they ask us in these projects quite frequently, in the student's voices directly to say, "Can't the aid office, can't the institution help bridge that gap? Can't they help meet my family a little bit more where they are, versus assuming that I'm walking in and my parents walking in with a common framework of knowledge that in my family does not have?" And it is a struggle, because that requires, again, that a ramping up of staffing, but also then the right opportunities for learning skills to have those conversations, and there is a gap there for families. And we hear that quite a bit.
Bridget Burns:
Great. And we have a couple more rapid fire before we wrap. Some of them I can handle. Where did the funds come from to award the completion grants at Georgia State? They had some institutional aid that was gifted to them from the president initially, but within the Alliance we actually got the resources from the Gates Foundation and Ascendium supported the grant, but the campuses had to match. So they had to use their own resources. Tim or Jessica, do either of you have any different context you would offer for someone about how you pay for these? And I got this question, "Do you have any data to support the statement, which I believe to be true, that completion grant programs more than pay for themselves by keeping students in school, instead of stopping out and losing credits?" So where's the money come from, and any evidence that can justify them?
Tim Renick:
I'll be quick. We posted in the chat a study that was done by Boston Consulting Group that does affirm the view that these programs more than pay for themselves and have a positive ROI. So check that link out and you can read the Boston Consulting Group study. The one thing I'll say about those sources is we've just completed a capital campaign at Georgia State where our top priority was need-based aid. And the most popular single program for donations was our completion grant program. That there are a lot of alums out there who identify themselves in these students who are plugging away, trying to study, but frustrated by the fact that they're stopping out and re-enrolling and so forth for financial reasons. So it's a real big win from a fundraising perspective.
It's also a big win from an alumni perspective. Our alumni association loves the fact that we've now given 19,000 of these grants out over the last seven or eight years, because these are 19,000 seniors who graduated more efficiently, not because they had to go out of their way to apply for something, but because Georgia State proactively reached out to them and helped them.
Bridget Burns:
Okay, super helpful.
Tony Erwin:
Bridget, if I can very quickly, I would just jump in and say another potential source, and this goes back to my pre-NASFAA life, so former institution, we would hear from our employer partners all the time about how fast can we get students deployable into our organizations. And one of the things that I would say when I was invited to those conversations, which wasn't all that often as an aid administrator, is, "If you are thinking of funding some programs, think about completion grants, because that will speed up the works of getting these students finished and into your positions." And so that might be another potential source of funding just for folks to think about.
Bridget Burns:
Okay, I have a quick one that is real, I don't even understand it, that's how smart it is. It's a real financial aid issue. "How do you address when additional aid like this is awarded and counted as EFA slash OFA for federal aid calculations, and just shifts around aid, rather than reducing their bill? Do you scrub the data to avoid this somehow for students already at COA, or do PJs to increase COA? Or do you do those things who would require ..." Okay, you get the point. So I'm guessing you speak this language and you understand what this means. So I look forward to you answering, probably Tim, Jessica ...
Tim Renick:
I was going to defer to Tony because he knows these terms better than I do. But I will say that all the students we're awarding the grants to have unmet need as verified by our financial aid office. So the grant is filling some of the gap between their expenses and their need. It's not exceeding the full [inaudible 00:56:35] levels.
Tony Erwin:
And I think some of the fast track that we heard about using available information to make selections has solved some of these problems. You're already pre-selecting a population that are not going to just trade one dollar for another. These are students who can directly benefit from the dollars and avoid shuffling of need-based funds that I think is kind of built in to the structure.
Bridget Burns:
Okay. And then one I heard ... There's a variety of other questions, but I would sum them up as, "What does the grant pay for?" So we heard a question specifically about supporting your family. We heard about room and board came in. Jessica, I think you got this question a million times about what people could use their completion grant in the student account to pay for.
Jessica Rowland Williams:
Tuition and fees. Tuition and fees, really simple. Not room and board, not things beyond that. At least that's the way that we structured the grant through this program. Again, context matters. So in thinking about how you might implement this in your institution, it may be slightly different, but that's how that was structured for this program.
Ian Wilhelm:
And as you mentioned, and Tim mentioned, there are emergency grants usually available as well for those other expenses possibly out there as well.
Bridget Burns:
Okay. Well, I think we are good to wrap in terms of we appreciate the time and the invested energy from all of our colleagues. I would say this has been a really rich conversation. It's just the beginning. As a part of this discussion, you're going to receive not just a copy of the video so you could watch back, but also you're going to receive a copy of the playbook, and there are a variety of materials that have been assembled. Tim referenced, in terms of things available from the National Institute for Student Success, which is another great resource in the field for you to look for answers, and to be able to gather supplies in terms of templates, tools, et cetera. And they offer coaching as well. So that's available to you.
And I think in terms of the other conversations that have been raised, you should definitely be checking out the Every Learner Everywhere website, and be able to learn more about all the various tools they've been releasing. I recently saw linked in an awesome report about equity, in terms of redefining today's students. Kim, we know that your conference, I believe you just passed, but it's one, it's incredibly valuable, worth going to. Tony, thank you so much for your time, and for folks who have really detailed questions, and Sharon as well. So we really appreciate you. And for those at home, we thank you for your time and your energy. And Ian, thanks again for hosting this.
Ian Wilhelm:
Yeah, thank you Bridget and thanks to all the panelists again. And thanks to our audience, without which we couldn't do our work here. So, thank you very much for your time today and appreciate everyone, their input and their insights.
[End of recorded material 00:59:14]
