Happy Financial Aid Awareness Month! Every February we recognize the crucial role that financial aid offices play in higher education and reaffirm our commitment to improving college accessibility. This year is particularly significant, given all of the challenges that we’ve faced in the past year—from ISIR processing delays to regulatory changes, technical glitches, and concerns that the 2025-26 FAFSA application would face the same obstacles as its predecessor. Balancing student needs amid technical issues is difficult, but part of our responsibility is finding ways to connect them with the information that they need to navigate the application process each year. Below are five tips that financial aid offices can use effectively to reach out to families:
- Collaborate with Campus Partners: Financial Aid offices often find themselves working in a silo, relying on internal resources to communicate with students. We encourage professionals to maintain their relationships with other front-facing departments that can encourage students to seek out guidance throughout the academic year. Your institution’s Registrar, Study Abroad, and Bursar offices are just three examples of campus partners that could be pivotal in communicating the importance of financial aid to the community.
- Share information and fun facts online: This is an easy way to reach both on and off campus students and doesn’t require significant planning. All you need is an online platform (think: social media) and some fun facts and information that will benefit students and families. Most schools and/or financial aid offices are on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Offices can use one or all of these to push the information, depending on the content. Once the platform is decided, take some time to decide on what you want to promote, ideas include:
- Scholarship information: Provide students and families information about institutional or outside scholarships that are available. If the institution has a list of outside scholarships, share the link to the list for families to review on their own.
- Fun facts about financial aid: This can be federal, state, or institutional financial aid facts. Think about the number or percentage of students who receive financial aid from the institution or fun ways for students to access more financial aid. Consider sharing information from a state or federal level as well. The office of Federal Student Aid has information about how much aid is received each year nationwide and some states have state scholarship information that could benefit students and families.
- Upcoming deadlines: Is there an institutional deadline coming up for FAFSA or to review financial aid? Institutions can share deadline information for current and prospective students as well.
- Host a financial literacy event: Successful events require thoughtful planning and promotion. Events can vary from workshops to complete financial aid applications or learn about funding options to financial literacy sessions like “What is Credit?” and “How to Budget.” These sessions can be on campus or webinars, targeted at current and prospective students. Some institutions create a week full of financial literacy events and/or promote them by incentivizing attendance with giveaways or a drawing based on attendance.
- Create How-to Webinars: One of the biggest hurdles in financial aid is connecting families with counselors during office hours without neglecting their other responsibilities. Recording webinars that narrate aspects of the application process can be a great tool to provide an overview of what to expect or answer general questions until the office is open again. It is important to make these videos accessible, so we recommend that you post them on a dedicated page of your institution’s website.
- Diversify Communication Style: Social media continues to alter how we communicate, and the reality is that younger generations are using apps like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok more than a traditional platform like email. Although it may be unorthodox, financial aid offices could take advantage of these applications to communicate important information to their respective communities. This venture is a good opportunity to possible hire a student worker who can help manage the account and provide insight on how to continuously improve engagement with their peers.
Let’s use this month to reflect on what approaches have succeed in the past and incorporate new strategies that can demystify the process for students by encouraging them to learn about the resources available to them. How is your office planning to celebrate and promote Financial Aid Awareness Month?