The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) unlocks futures. But many high school seniors don’t realize this simple, 15-minute form could change their lives.
“[N]ationwide, students who would’ve been eligible for a Pell Grant but who did not complete the FAFSA left about $4.4 billion on the table,” says Bill DeBaun, the National College Attainment Network's (NCAN’s) Senior Director for Data and Strategic Initiatives, citing a 2025 NCAN analysis of the high school class of 2024. “The grants, loans, and other opportunities unlocked by FAFSA completion can make the difference for being able to afford education and training after high school.”
As a college counselor, you want your students to have every opportunity. So do we! We reached out to USF’s financial aid director, plus panelists from a recent CollegeBoard webinar on boosting FAFSA completion, to find out how counselors can help more seniors submit their FAFSA. Their advice includes:
Clear, consistent communication to students and families
FAFSA completion events and financial aid presentations
Individual sessions with high-need students and families
Accessible distribution of information
Partnerships with local higher-ed institutions
Resource-sharing between schools
Let’s take a deeper dive into how college counselors can increase FAFSA completion rates among high school seniors.
When it comes to filling out the FAFSA, “fear of the unknown is probably the biggest roadblock,” says Sandra González-Moore, the coordinator for college, career, and military readiness at Palo Duro High School in Texas.
She always starts conversations by educating families about how the FAFSA works. Never assume someone understands the FAFSA, she says. Even if parents have completed it before, there are constant updates. (You can read about some of the FAFSA changes implemented since The Working Families Tax Cut Act on our website.)
Plus, myths abound. It’s time to debunk them.
Students and families often mistakenly believe that filling out the FAFSA is a painful experience — when in fact, it usually takes less time than cooking rice.
“The FAFSA Simplification Act … greatly reduced the time that it takes to actually complete an application,” says Dameion Lovett, deputy director of financial aid at USF Tampa.
“After doing FAFSAs for over 10 years, this is the best iteration of the FAFSA that I've seen,” agrees Atua Emu, director of post-secondary match at KIPP Forward in Georgia.
It can take anywhere from five to 20 minutes to complete both the student and parent portions. When Lovett filled out the FAFSA himself, he was shocked.
“I got it finished in, I want to say, two minutes,” Lovett recalls. “I pushed the button. I sat there, and I looked at it. I'm like, ‘Wait, am I done? Am I done? Am I done?’”
Spoiler alert: He was done.
Families really can’t know what they’ll qualify for until they complete the FAFSA, as Lovett says. What you’re awarded is not simply based on your income, as many families believe, but on a combination of factors that are run through a formula.
Even if a family is sure they won’t qualify for government-based aid like Pell Grants, help them understand that they don’t want to close the door on school-funded awards.
“I think the biggest misconception is that FAFSA is only for students who have financial need,” says González-Moore. “In reality, institutions of higher education are using that to consider students for scholarships, for grants, for work-study, and just different opportunities … They can't do that without a FAFSA on file.”
Families may feel financially comfortable now, but circumstances can change quickly. “We always encourage them, no matter what, just complete [the FAFSA] because you can't predict the future,” Lovett says.
He remembers the chaos after COVID-19, when many parents lost their jobs and could no longer pay for tuition. Students had to scramble to fill out the FAFSA in the middle of the school year.
“Every day that passes, the student can have more financial distress,” says Lovett. If students have already submitted the FAFSA, however, financial aid officers can review their file and see if they qualify for additional aid.
The FAFSA application opens on October 1, but many families think they must wait until Tax Day (April 15) to file, causing them to miss deadlines or qualify for less aid.
Explain that the application uses tax information from two years prior, so there’s no need to wait until April. Students should complete the FAFSA as soon as it opens.
Many people believe that the FAFSA only applies to four-year schools.
Emu addresses this myth head-on. “We position it that the FAFSA is not just for bachelor's degree-seeking students. It's for students who are going to our local community colleges, our technical colleges.”
Many people worry that by filling out the FAFSA, they are committing to taking out a loan.
“The FAFSA will determine if the student qualifies for loans, but they are not signing a master promissory note. They are not accepting the loan at that point,” Emu explains to families. “There are multiple steps after submitting the FAFSA, after getting the award letter, before they even consider a loan.”
If families are considering loans, you can refer them to our articles on parent loans and student debt, plus other in-depth financial explainers on our blog.
To boost FAFSA completion rates among your students, emphasize the importance of submitting the FAFSA early, host classroom financial aid lessons, meet one-on-one with students, and encourage seniors to fill out the form during class time.
Students should understand that they have a better chance of receiving more aid if they submit the FAFSA early. This is especially true for students headed to public universities, which only receive a certain amount of money from the government.
Submitting your FAFSA early puts you “in the pool to receive as much financial aid as you qualify for,” says Lovett. “We will typically have more qualified students than we have money for.” A lot of financial aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, so when you apply later, “chances are some of that money is going to be gone.”
If you tell teens to fill out a form, they’ll groan.
But tell those same teens that someone might be waiting to give them thousands of dollars, and they’ll flock to your office.
“I work at a high-needs school. Ninety percent of my students are qualifying for reduced lunch,” González-Moore says, which means most will also qualify for Pell Grants of up to $7,395. She tells seniors, “If you give me 15 minutes of your time, it could translate to over $7,000 of potential financial aid for you.”
This shows that how you sell it to kids matters. If they understand that 15 minutes could earn them $7,000, most will not say no.
“There's a shortage of educators across the country, which also means that there's going to be a shortage of substitutes,” says González-Moore. When a class in her school needs a substitute, she uses this opportunity to do a “classroom takeover” focused on financial aid.
“Everybody wins. The class is covered. Leadership's not having to worry about trying to fill a space in a class. At the same time, I’m completing my mission of helping students,” she says.
González-Moore lets teachers know that when she substitutes, her focus will be on financial aid, so the original lesson plan might not get covered. But she also builds relationships with those teachers so they still feel appreciated and supported.
“I get to meet with teachers at the beginning of the year and say, ‘This is who I am. This is the work that we do. We can't do this work without you, without your support.’”
Anytime you can meet individually with a student and/or their parents, do it. It makes a big difference. Of course, that’s not always possible.
“For us, our senior class might vary anywhere from 350 seniors to 480 a year. I've got a staff of myself and one or two others working to help our students,” González-Moore says. Still, she tries to do one-on-ones as often as possible, especially once financial aid offers arrive. “Truth be told, as much as we put physical information in front of students, they're not always reading it … They listen a lot better when you're doing one-on-ones and in-person and breaking it down for them.”
Almost ninety percent of seniors at Emu’s school are enrolled in a college success class where they are required to create their FSA ID and complete their portion of the FAFSA during classroom time. It’s a guaranteed way to boost FAFSA submissions.
If your school doesn’t offer a class like this, you can still encourage seniors to fill out their FAFSA during school hours. Host a FAFSA completion event at lunchtime or partner with teachers to have students complete their FAFSA during general education classes.
Incentives help, too. If your school can swing it, consider a gift-card raffle students can enter after they complete their FAFSA.
In Emu’s school, students who complete the FAFSA receive a special cord to wear at graduation. It may seem simple, but they love the extra swag. “You would be surprised what young people like,” Emu says.
Even candy can be motivating, as Emu says: “You submit your part of the FAFSA, you get Smarties.”
Another great reason to have your students complete the FAFSA at school? Their parents won’t be tempted to do it for them.
“The way the FAFSA works now is that the student has to complete their portion of the application and then invite their parent to complete their portion,” says Lovett. “What was happening was the parents were completing the application for the student, and a lot of them were answering the questions for the student as if it were them. Whenever they did that, it caused all kinds of discrepancies.”
Taking responsibility for FAFSA completion is also a good way for students to start managing their own financial affairs. Help them create a system to remember their username and password for their FSA ID.
Getting your students to complete the FAFSA is only half of the equation. To encourage parents to complete their portion of the FAFSA, send clear, frequent communications, host FAFSA nights and FAFSA days, and follow up with families who've fallen through the cracks.
Communicate with parents frequently and consistently. Keep messages short and simple, avoid using jargon, and start sending FAFSA information months before it opens. “The sooner you can start communicating with families, the better,” González-Moore says.
Aim to reach families across multiple channels: automatic emails and text messages, social posts, newsletters, and notifications via your school’s learning management system.
Personalized messages also go a long way. Emu emails each family a list of their student’s top school choices and explains how filling out the parent portion of the FAFSA can open doors to these institutions.
Most schools host FAFSA nights, where parents can drop by and complete their portion in about 10 minutes. At Emu’s school, it’s been a big success: “For the past two years, we've had over 100 families for our FAFSA nights.”
What’s their secret?
“Seniors, they like food,” Emu says. “We make sure we have a good meal.”
Once you attract the students with a catered dinner, they’ll recruit their parents for you. “They're like, ‘Hey, Mom, come and get some food. I'm already here. Let's go ahead and finish this up.’”
González-Moore’s school offers recurring “FAFSA Thursdays.”
As soon as the FAFSA opens, the counseling team dedicates every Thursday to financial aid. “You come when it's convenient for you,” González-Moore tells families. “We're here from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the afternoon. That's a pretty large window of time.”
If families can’t make it on a Thursday, González-Moore’s team schedules an appointment with them at another time.
Offering a dedicated, weekly FAFSA day helps parents feel prioritized and gives counselors time to focus on financial aid. “Even my leadership team knows, ‘Okay, if it's a FAFSA day, we're not messing with them. We're not asking anything of them. That's their priority.’”
Of course, no matter how many events you offer, some families will fall through the cracks. In most states, you can pull data that shows which students and parents haven’t yet completed the FAFSA and “triage support” to them, says DeBaun.
Emu’s emails to parents are warm and solution-focused, offering multiple options to connect: Can we jump on Zoom? Could you come up to the school during homeroom advisory? Can I meet you? Let's go ahead and get this part of the FAFSA done.
You can make financial aid opportunities accessible to more families by building trust, offering translation services, and meeting individually with vulnerable students.
“The more trust you can create with your students and with your families, the more likely that they’re going to accept help from you,” González-Moore says.
It’s important to create a space where families feel safe sharing their complex, sometimes sensitive, circumstances with you.
“There’s probably not a circumstance you can give me that I haven’t had come across our desk in the last 15 years,” González-Moore reassures families. “My job is to support you. If your kid's goal is, I want to enroll in college, my goal is, We’re going to get your kid enrolled in college.”
Whether families are navigating the immigration system, experiencing homelessness/unstable housing, or dealing with any other complication, make sure you’ve built a “circle of trust.”
Once Sondra has that circle of trust with one family, she asks them for referrals: “Hey, if you know that there’s others like you, tell them to please come. I want to help.”
Students in foster care or those without guardians may avoid filling out the FAFSA because they think they won’t qualify. Of course, you know that these students will likely qualify for even more aid than average.
“I think it's important that school counselors work with those students more intentionally, and maybe provide more support for them,” Emu says. Prioritize scheduling a one-on-one with those students ahead of FAFSA night.
Throughout the process, “be an advocate for the student,” says Emu, especially if they don’t have a parent who can fill that role.
Make sure FAFSA information is accessible for families who don’t speak English. If you don’t have a translator or bilingual staff member available to interpret, you could try partnering with local colleges, who may send an interpreter to your FAFSA events.
More than 30 different dialects are spoken on González-Moore’s campus, so she has also appointed student ambassadors. She teaches bilingual students how to operate like mini college counselors who can inform their peers about financial aid. Student ambassadors can refer mentees with bigger questions to González-Moore, but this process gets basic information disseminated more quickly. It’s been very successful.
As a college counselor, you can’t operate in a silo. Build relationships with fellow counselors and higher ed financial aid offices across the school district.
Invite financial aid representatives from local institutions to visit your school. For example, USF financial aid officers partner with schools across our region.
If your school doesn’t already have relationships with local financial aid officers, build them. “Everybody’s busy,” González-Moore says. “If we sit and wait for an institution to reach out to us, they’re not going to. They’re working with thousands [of students].”
Let financial aid offices know you’d like to be notified of any FAFSA updates as soon as they hear — which will likely be sooner than you will.
Once you have established relationships, it becomes a lot easier to get help for your students.
“It's all about relationships,” says González-Moore. “That's what it boils down to. If I have a great relationship with my leadership team and they understand the work that we do and they understand the purpose of it, they're going to buy into it a lot better.”
Get FAFSA buy-in from staff across your school, from the principal to the choir leaders, basketball coaches, and drama teachers. The more that caring adults understand the importance of FAFSA completion, the more mentors students will have.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel (or the FAFSA downloadable). If your team makes a financial aid resource, be sure to share it with counselors in other schools.
“I always like to say, we need to lean on each other,” Emu says. “Make sure that you are building your FAFSA completion community within the school and even outside of the school.”
If you hear of a grant opportunity for local students, inform your counselors across the district.
If you discover an amazing toolkit designed just for college counselors, send it to your colleagues. And … guess what? We have just the thing!
You can also subscribe to our newsletter:
If you have questions about USF, contact us today. Let’s partner for student success!