Financial Aid offices across the country have a lot to worry about around FAFSA Simplification: 

• When will the FAFSA be ready? 
• What changes do I need to make to my processes? 
• Will the software vendors be ready? 
• How will this impact my awarding methodology? 

With all of these to sort out, there is less time for one of the biggest questions: 

• How can I support students and families through this process?

We know as financial aid leaders you want to make sure that your students have the information they need to complete the FAFSA and get the financial aid they deserve. But you don't have time to answer every question individually.

For some prospective students (and their families!), the new process around the FAFSA is…well…new no matter what.  Because they have never filled one out before.  For others, who might have an older sibling who has already applied to college, it may be a different story.    But regardless of if you have filled out a FAFSA before or not, there are bound to be questions, starting from: “when will this actually be ready” and all the way to “It used to be I paid less for having more than one child in college - what happened?”

Over the past few months - at WASFA, EASFAA and NASFAA, and across the 30+ Meadow partners we get to talk to on an almost weekly basis, communications keeps coming up as really important, while also being really hard to focus on amidst everything else going on.

So we got together with other financial aid leaders and created the SAI Communications Toolkit -  a free resource that includes a set of email templates that you can use to answer common FAFSA questions we anticipate you will get from prospective students.   It is part 1 in a series - with email templates for current students coming soon, as well as copy and infographics for your website (subscribe to our blog for updates!) but we hope it gets you started.

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