AI Tactics For Supporting Students Through DOE FAFSA Financial Aid Delays
Yesterday, the Department of Education announced higher education institutions will not be receiving student financial aid data from submitted FAFSAs until March.
This delay is rightfully infuriating school counselors, financial aid advisers, and schools everywhere.
The potential fallouts of this delay are tremendous: financial aid advisors will have to compile financial aid letters for thousands of students in a matter of weeks rather than months and school counselors will have to condensed timelines to analyze financial aid packages with students and craft appeal letters.
Students will have to make their biggest life decision up to this point without access to critical information they need to do so. For marginalized students, this may mean students opting out of college because of lack of clarity around financial aid before enrollment deadlines.
Over the next month, I hope the DOE provides real resources to respond to this delay and my colleagues at colleges will advocate for extensions in enrollment deadlines as possible.
That said, for my school counselor colleagues, how can we prepare our students for a fast and furious response once their aid packages finally do release?
AI can play a significant role in supporting this season. Here’s a few AI tactics school counselors can use to support students in financial aid preparation over the next month:
Breaking down financial aid terms
AI is a powerful tool in scaffolding concepts such as financial aid terms. If you need students to understand topics like Stafford unsubsidized and subsidized loans, grants, and work study, you can generate help language using “explain like I’m 5” prompts and image generators so students understand. Try the prompt below in chatgpt as a starting point.
Prompt: You are an expert in college counseling and financial aid advising for high school students. I am planning a lesson around critical financial aid terminology with my high school seniors currently applying to college. I would like for you to explain the following terms as simply and concisely as you can for high school students going through the financial aid process for the first time. Use real world analogies where possible. For each term, please also add one brief sentence on any pros and cons with this type of financial aid where appropriate. The terms I would like for you to break down are: subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, grants, scholarships, cost of attendance, indirect cost of attendance, and work study. I would like these definitions produced in an easy to read table format for easy sharing with my classroom.
Financial literacy lessons
If you are doing lessons around financial aid or financial literacy in general, AI tools like chatgpt can help you develop engaging, relevant lesson plans and learner materials quickly based on the specific objectives you might have.
Prompt: You are an expert in curriculum design and evaluation for high schools. I would like to facilitate a 60 minute session on the following objective for a group of 25 high school students: “students will be able to create a monthly budget for indirect costs while in college.” The lesson should include a lesson plan, key vocabulary with simple definitions appropriate for high school students, three questions to check for understanding, and three options for guided and independent practice activities to achieve this objective. The lesson should also include two questions to be used as an exit ticket. Activities should not require any additional materials beyond access to the internet, chart paper, and markers.
Generating financial aid appeal letters
Your students haven’t received any financial aid packages yet..not too early to start on those appeal letters! For most students I’ve worked with, we always submitted financial aid appeals to any schools they were considering to see if we could advocate for any additional aid before they made their decision. Working on those letters now allows students to plug in information and quickly send those out to financial aid offices when their aid packages come in. This can also be a great mini lesson in self advocacy, which students need to regularly practice to be successful in college.
Prompt: Generate a financial aid appeal letter for a high school student to send to all accepted college options. The appeal letter should include the following context: students’ father recently lost role as an HVAC technician in the last three months, and student is excited to connect leadership at high school in robotics club to the artificial intelligence club and TEDxU events happening on campus next year. After generating the letter, provide a sample email the student can use to send to financial aid offices alongside the financial aid appeal letter, and six tactics a student can do over the next three weeks to prepare financially for college enrollment.
Analyzing and comparing practice (and real) financial aid letters
I’ve found Chatgpt is strong at analyzing information on financial aid letters and breaking down concepts with good prompting. If you want your students to be familiar with financial aid letter formats, you can show them a letter, have Chatgpt analyze, and then have them discuss chatGPT’s analysis versus their own opinion. Alternatively, you could set up all of your seniors with a couple foundational prompts, have them set privacy mode on Chatgpt, and have Chatgpt do an initial analysis of their financial aid letter. While students do this, you can meet with students 1:1 or in small groups to answer any specific questions they did not get answered but the AI analysis. This also works great for comparing: you can ask AI to format as a table, include the data points you are most interested in, and have students analyze the table.
Prompt: You are an expert in college counseling and financial aid analysis for high school students. Analyze the attached financial aid letter. The students you are engaging with are first generation and going through this process for the first time so each response you share should be broken down by individual financial aid terms and be simple. You should not generate more than four sentences in any response. After explaining one topic, ask the student if they are ready to move on to the next one or if they have any questions. Your tone should be friendly and encouraging. Be sure to include the total cost of attendance, including room and board, with loans and without loans. Do not include work study as a part of the aid given, this will not impact direct cost.
I hope these tactics serve as a helpful starting point during a turbulent moment.
For my AI enthusiasts, what other strategies might we add to this list?
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