AZ FAF$A Challenge
August 2020
New State FAFSA Completion Goal
With FAFSA season right around the corner, Arizona has established a 52% statewide FAFSA completion goal for the 2020-2021 school year. This ambitious yet achievable goal of having 52% of Arizona high school seniors complete the FAFSA will push Arizona forward in its FAFSA completion efforts. In order to work towards this goal, the collaboration of postsecondary partners and community organizations utilizing strategic outreach will be a driving force to ensure state-wide FAFSA resource assistance and support.
Last school year, 46% of Arizona high school seniors completed a FAFSA versus 47% FAFSA completion the year prior. By involving stakeholders in a collaborative statewide effort, Arizona will advance FAFSA completion rates and provide more students and families with options to afford a post-secondary education.
Arizona FAFSA Kick-Off
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) and the Arizona College Access Network (AzCAN) will be hosting a statewide FAFSA kick-off! The virtual event will include Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman as a keynote speaker and include various FAFSA breakout sessions to help prepare counselors and educators with learning more about the FAFSA and resources available.
FAFSA Completion Dashboard- New Updates and Features
New updates and features have been added to the Arizona FAFSA Completion Dashboard! The new updates include the following:
A Total State Pell Grant Eligibility Estimate
New Highlights page that includes FAFSA benchmarks and number of FAFSA's needed to reach the state goal for each high school and county
FAFSA timeline updated to include the following FAFSA data for the 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 school year.
The high school view currently includes Final FAFSA completion rates for the 2018-19 and 2019-20 school year. New data for the current 2020-21 school year will be added in October when the 2021-22 FAFSA is available.
C2GA Program Changes for Fall
Since the school year has started off with multiple learning formats this fall semester, the ACPE has decided to make some changes to how it will be supporting schools with College & Career Goal Arizona (C2GA) events. Many schools have expressed that they are not planning to host an in-person event for at least the first few months of this semester and possibly not until spring. The ACPE has decided that for at least this fall semester, they will not be posting C2GA events on the statewide calendar and SignUpGenius. Instead, efforts will be focused on promoting and supporting virtual resources from Arizona’s postsecondary education partners.
FAFSA Finish Line Data
Interested in receiving FAF$A Finish Line Data? Click here to access the Data Sharing Agreement and ACPE User Agreement. Once completed and processed, you will have access to securely see which of your senior students have completed a FAFSA, who was selected for verification, or if a student has an incomplete FAFSA application on file. This is a great tool for high school counselors, as well as career and college specialists, to utilize in order to assist students and increase your schools' FAFSA completion rates.
***Keep in mind that the FAF$A Finish Line data can be used in calculating your school's
CCRI score ****
Contact Us
Email: azcpe2@gmail.com
Website: FAFSAChallenge.az.gov
Location: 2020 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Phone: 602-542-7230
Facebook: facebook.com/collegegoalaz
Twitter: @collegegoalaz