By Rachel Williams, NACAC Communications

Despite the chaotic rollout of the FAFSA last year, there was a silver lining for Peak Education in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The college and career readiness organization learned new ways to effectively engage with students and families in the FAFSA process.

Thanks in part to a grant from Strada Education Foundation, which NACAC helped distribute to schools and community-based organizations last summer, Peak Education was able to connect with students through a texting platform. The organization also offered support to all community members who needed help with the FAFSA, extending beyond the students and families from the partner schools they were already working with.

“With the help of the grant we were able to do that for the first time, to go outside of the schools we serve and let the community know we’re here and that students could just walk in,” said Claudia De Santiago, director of development at Peak Education.

The overwhelming demand for Peak Education’s services last summer showed the organization just how much the community needs additional support and resources, particularly with the FAFSA process. This awareness reaffirmed Peak Education’s plan to relocate the organization to a more centralized spot in Colorado Springs to better serve the broader community. It also reinforced their need to hire an additional college and career advisor.

“We have two people that are currently doing this work, and that is not enough for the need that is out there,” said Tam Doane, college and financial aid advisor at Peak Education.

Peak Education is just one of 22 organizations that NACAC awarded grants to last summer through its collaboration with Strada. The recipients were from all over the country.

Collegiate Directions, Inc. (MD), for example, hosted additional virtual presentations, translated resources into other languages to reach a diverse population, offered one-on-one appointments, and partnered with a local high school to offer drop-in FAFSA support. It gleaned insights that helped shape some of its current efforts.

“This year, we started planning for the FAFSA cycle earlier. So even as we were still implementing some of the activities from the Strada grant, we were already talking about how we can proactively engage as many students as we can while they’re still in school and they’re more of a captive audience,” said Jill Semmens, program manager at Collegiate Directions. “Even with our more widespread promotion last summer, we still found that most of the students we served came to us directly from schools. I think that’s because students want financial aid information from someone who they know and trust, even if it’s just a soft handoff via email from a counselor.”

In another example, The Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA) created a FAFSA Fellows program with 20 college-access providers that then offered one-one-one FAFSA assistance. The FAFSA Fellows program served 800 students during the grant period.

“We were thrilled to see so many college-access organizations step up to meet the moment last summer,” said Angel B. PĂ©rez, NACAC CEO.

For years, NACAC research and advocacy have emphasized the connection between counselors, students, the FAFSA, and college entrance, noting that students who work with a school counselor are seven times more likely to submit a FAFSA, four times more likely to enter postsecondary education, and twice as likely to enroll in a four-year college.

“With many school counselors and school-based college advisors on 10-month contracts, we knew additional support after the academic year ended was essential to ensuring students had support in their transition to postsecondary education,” said PĂ©rez.

To further equip members with knowledge and resources to help students and families with FAFSA, NACAC offers a Foundations of Financial Aid on-demand course and a 2025-26 FAFSA recorded webinar, presented by Federal Student Aid.