Austin Leads Pack on Early Student Aid Submissions

by Thinkstock

Public-private partnerships have become synonymous with boondoggles. In public education, doubly so. Not the case here: An alliance between multiple Austin-area school districts and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce means almost half of local students got their federal financial aid applications in early this year.

The Texas Education Agency breaks the state's schools into 20 regions. When it comes to Free Application for Federal Stu­dent Aid (FAFSA) submissions, Region 13, which is centered around Austin, leads the pack with 41% of students having submitted applications by March 30. By comparison, the bottom of the list is Region 18, based around Midland, which has only a 20% submission rate.

However, working from numbers provided by the U.S. Department of Education, the chamber has calculated the application rates for the schools within the Direct-to-College Achieve­ment Plan, or DTC70. That subset of Region 13 includes nine public school districts (Austin, Del Valle, Elgin, Hays, Hutto, Leander, Manor, Pflugerville, and Round Rock) and three charter groups (KIPP, Harmony, and NYOS) who have formed a pact with the chamber to reach a 70% direct-to-college enrollment rate for the class of 2016. A huge component of that is setting students up financially, and part of that is getting the FAFSA applications in well before the June 30 deadline. This year 49% of seniors in DTC70 filed their FAFSA forms by the end of March.

In very simple terms, that means 800 more students within DTC70 have applied before the end of the financial quarter than in 2015, and are on stream to receive an additional $9.6 million in financial aid.

There's no magic here. The application process is relatively simple, if you know what you're doing, so the key is educating families on what needs to be done. Vice President of Education and Talent Development Gilbert Zavala particularly praised Del Valle ISD: After years of low turnout at their financial aid Saturday event, this year, he said, "They just rallied together and had over 100 families."

The chamber has pumped $80,000 into the initiative, from which it gets a simple benefit. As the number of jobs that require at least some college experience increase, the chamber's members benefit from having more college-ready students. Chamber Senior Vice President Drew Scheberle said, "We've really focused on getting early filing." And he expects that 49% to rise. The current total only includes online applications. Once paper applications are processed, previous years have shown, that number could rise by another 10%, meaning well over half of all students will have applied.

Free Application for Federal Student Aid Applications Rates by Region

Austin (Region 13): 41%

Rio Grande Valley (Region 1): 40%

El Paso (Region 19): 40%

San Antonio (Region 20): 33%

DTC70 plan members: 49%

Of the 20 educational regions in Texas, these are the highest-rated in the number of students who submit financial aid applications early. If they were a district by themselves, the nine ISDs and three charter groups in the DTC70 education partnership surrounding Austin would have the highest rate in the state.