Supporting Students in Their College Journey

The release of the new “simpler” Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) earlier this year caused unprecedented chaos. A three-month delay and ongoing technical issues left students and families struggling to access and complete the form, leading to an almost 2% drop in financial aid applications—nearly 40,000—among California students alone. And among students most in need of support, the numbers are even more grim, with the National College Attainment Network reporting that FAFSA completion rates are down nearly 13% nationwide among low-income students. These drops could not only exacerbate the inequities that exist in our higher education systems, but also mean that a significant amount of money available for students pursuing higher education is being left on the table.

One organization leading efforts to address these challenges and expand student support is Haas Jr. grantee partner, the Southern California College Attainment Network (SoCal CAN), an alliance of over 120 organizations working to support the college aspirations of more than 350,000 students.

Through partnerships with over 60 groups, they successfully extended application deadlines in California, ran an eight-week summer campaign to provide financial aid counseling to students and families, and are now pushing for key improvements in the upcoming financial aid cycles. Their collaborative approach has allowed them to respond swiftly to the FAFSA crisis, helping students navigate the new form and serving as a bridge between policymakers and community organizations.

Jessie Ryan, executive vice president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, a statewide organization focused on college access in California, said SoCal CAN’s leadership on the FAFSA issue this year has been crucial. “SoCal CAN stepped up to address the FAFSA challenges at a critical moment,” Ryan said. “When every day of inaction threatened to halt the college dreams of our most vulnerable students, SoCal CAN worked tirelessly with partners like the Campaign for College Opportunity to coalesce around potential policy remedies, student-centered communications strategies, and advocacy to extend the state financial aid and intent to register deadlines.”

A Student-Centered Movement

In addition to supporting students directly through financial aid workshops and access to college counselors, the groups that form the SoCal CAN Alliance work together through the organization to advocate for policies and institutional reforms that will increase the availability of financial aid and other critical supports.

Marcos Montes, who serves as policy director for SoCal CAN, said the organization’s policy agenda is based on extensive input from students, frontline counselors, and partners across the college access movement. “Working with so many organizations allowed us to have a pulse on the myriad issues students and families were facing as they moved through the form. It also allowed us to uplift diverse voices in the process and be in a privileged position of serving as a liaison between policymakers and the organizations doing critical work in our communities,” Montes said.

SoCal CAN has been committed to improving financial aid programs and recently helped inform policies that removed administrative barriers (such as age limitation and time out of high school) for Cal Grants, California’s state financial aid program. The organization also worked with partners across California to respond to the FAFSA crisis with student-centered solutions such as:

• Providing direct testimony to the Department of Education Office of Federal Student Aid and other government agencies on the roadblocks faced by students and families as they tried to fill out the new FAFSA application.
• Extending registration deadlines for public colleges and universities in California.
• Making the California Dream Act Application available as an alternative way to apply for state and institutional financial aid for first-time applicants from mixed-status households in California. They are in conversation with the Office of Student Federal Aid to resolve this issue for the upcoming application cycle (The technical glitches with the FAFSA initially meant these households, where one or more parents do not have a Social Security Number, were totally blocked from completing the application.)

In June 2024, SoCal CAN received funding from the U.S. Department of Education to participate in the FAFSA Summer Support Strategy. This enabled them to collaborate with various college access programs, offering in-person and virtual clinics to assist students and families across Southern California in navigating the financial aid process. They are now turning their attention to the 2025-2026 FAFSA application, working to ensure a smoother rollout.

“Culture Shift”

De Lucca said solutions to the many challenges students face when it comes to finding their way to a high-quality, affordable, and rewarding college degree can only come through collaboration and aligned advocacy.

“There is no one organization or institution or state policy that can address the widespread inequities that exist in our communities,” she said. “The only way to move the needle on these issues is through collective and shared action.” De Lucca noted that’s why SoCal CAN regularly partner with other advocates—including Haas Jr. grantees like the Campaign for College Opportunity, The Education Trust—West, and the Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS).

Manny Rodriguez, director of policy and advocacy for TICAS in California, called SoCal CAN “a crucial partner” in the work of supporting students to find their way to a bachelor’s degree. He cited SoCal CAN’s work in the FAFSA crisis as a model for powerful organizing and advocacy.

SoCal CAN’s work ensured that the hardships being experienced by our students and families—especially mixed-status families—were not taken lightly and that California’s leaders did what they could to extend the time families needed to apply for aid in order to fund their postsecondary education.

Manny Rodriguez, Director of Policy and Advocacy, The Institute for College Access and Success

Montes said the decisive action and collaboration that SoCal CAN and its partners showed in response to the FAFSA crisis is increasingly essential given the messages many of today’s students and families are getting that suggest that going to college might not be worth it.

“We know for a fact that going to college and getting a degree is the best and surest route to economic mobility and a better life for students and families we’re focused on,” said Montes. He continued, “We want to work with partners to create a real culture shift where more people understand the value of college, and where our systems are working together to provide the supports students need.”

Montes and De Lucca both emphasized the importance of flexible support from funders, including unrestricted general operating funds, in enabling SoCal CAN to achieve its goals. “At the start of the year we were focused on financial aid reform and then we had to pivot overnight to tackling the FAFSA crisis,” said De Lucca. “That’s the power of having funders who believe in us and who trust us to do what we need to do for students.”