Recommendations 1

Jeanie Kim

EDUC 397

Final Project Recommendations

Part 5: Action plan giving specifics to implement the remedies to achieve an ethical climate on campus

Ethical problem: communicating changes to financial aid during these difficult economic times,
especially to lower income and first generation students?

In order to reach out to lower income and first generation students during these difficult

economic times, Foothill College Financial Aid Office (FAO) must employ many strategies. It

must also work with many constituencies to consider the various perspectives (faculty, student,

administrator) in the decision making process. After interviewing the FAO staff and researching

different strategies implemented by other college and university financial aid offices, our group

has determined the following recommendations to achieve an ethical climate on Foothill

College’s campus: (1) improve the marketing strategies of the FAO; (2) hire bilingual support

staff; (3) attain increased faculty involvement; (4) educate students how to obtain financial aid

(e.g., FAFSA workshops); (5) continue outreach to high schools; and (6) train financial aid staff.

Foothill College FAO already has some successful outreach strategies. For this reason,

recommendations have been categorized into three main areas: Effective, Improvement, Needs

to be implemented. If a strategy is an “Effective” strategy, then it is a pre-existing one that

needs minimal or little improvement. Second, if it is an “Improvement” strategy, then it is a pre-

existing one that is valuable but needs improvement. Finally, if it is a “Needs to be implemented”

strategy, then is has yet to be implemented.

 Recommendations 2

Effective strategies

Currently, the Foothill College FAO counselors visit local area high schools. In their visits,

the counselors explain to students the various financial aid opportunities that are available to

them at Foothill College. In addition to visits, counselors also may hold evening information

sessions at the college for the local community, which are very informative for incoming

freshmen (especially first generation and low income students). Outreach to high school

students is an effective way of preparing incoming students of the realities of the costs of a

college or university education. However, according to Andrew LeManque, more than fifty

percent of DeAnza and other community college students did not file a FAFSA in 2003-2004

(LeManque, 2006, Factors Affecting Financial Aid Participation).

What were the reasons for this large percentage of students who did not file for federal aid?

Is this because students did not feel that they needed financial aid to attend a two-year

institution? Is it because they missed the deadline? Students act on “perceived benefits” –

meaning that if they do not believe there is a benefit they will not act. As educators, this may be

a relatively easy concept to understand, but students need to be trained to see the intrinsic value

of filling out financial aid forms, meeting with the financial aid office to inquire about

scholarship opportunities, etc. (Why are these important activities?) Those who did not fill out

FAFSA generally fell into four major groups: (1) parents or student could afford to pay (40%);

(2) family income too high (23%); (3) missed deadline (9%); (4) other reason (30%). Some

students could cite more than one reason (LeManque, 2006, Factors Affecting Financial Aid

Participation).

A surprising result of the study was that the “other reason,” or approximately thirty percent of

the students who failed to file a FAFSA, were actually non-completers of the FAFSA. These
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students had started filing the FAFSA, but for one reason or another they had either filed it

incorrectly or never finished filing it. What is most startling is that forty-one percent of this

group did not know that their application was incomplete. Other issues students had were

obtaining financial aid information from their parents, assuming that they were ineligible for

financial aid, thinking that they had missed the deadline, and thinking that the entire financial aid

process (filling out forms) was too time consuming (LeManque, 2006, Factors Affecting

Financial Aid Participation).

Strategies to be improved

In order to help students who are not utilizing the resources of the FAO, there are several

strategies that LeManque and the FAO have suggested, including to boost marketing of the

department, increase faculty involvement, educate students how to properly utilize financial aid

and its resources, and to train financial aid staff to be more sensitive to the needs of students.

While it is understandable that the FAO has a limited budget for marketing and advertising, it

should appropriate funds to the (re)development of this office. This marketing can be through

various methods, such as continuing the outreach to local schools and holding “how to file

FAFSA” evening seminars.

Relationships with students can be multilayered if faculty are also included. Students benefit

when their professors take an interest in their education. It can be as simple as faculty

mentioning the FAO and its services in their class. Or the faculty can be more involved the

process and they can establish a mentorship with students. Also, it is important to educate all

students how to use financial aid (e.g., FAFSA workshops). It is evident that some students do

not receive financial assistance because they find the filling out of forms process too onerous and
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bureaucratic. For these student populations, the FAO needs to focus on educating and training to

make the process less bewildering and tedious.

The FAO staff needs to be trained in order to deal with the realities of the changing student

populations. According to Foothill College FAO and student perspective, students sometimes

feel rebuffed when they come to the FAO and ask for assistance. This unfriendly attitude in the

“front lines” could be due to two main reasons: (1) limited or inadequate staffing; and (2) lack of

training. Foothill College FAO staff could be (re)trained on customer service and dealing with

its constituency. On its website, Foothill College has all the information (scholarships, financial

aid, etc.), but how does the FAO get students to utilize this great resource? Once again, this goes

back to better outreach programs.

Strategies to be implemented

LeManque suggests that community colleges should have bilingual support staff in FAO.
The reasoning to support this strategy is that many first generation and lower income students
who did not file the FAFSA are either speaking English as a second language or have parents
who do not speak English fluently or at all. These bilingual support staff could not only speak to
students, but also to parents who sometimes withhold tax information from their students.

Reference

LaManque, Andrew. (2006). Factors Affecting Financial Aid Participation at a California

Community College. Research Presentation Prepared for the Association for Institutional
Research Annual Conference, 2006, Chicago
De Anza College http://research.fhda.edu/researchreports/file_library/Financial%20Aid
%20Participation%20by%20Ethnicity.pdf