The Challenges and Impacts of the New FAFSA Timeline with Mary Beth Marks 

Gil Rogers sits down with Mary Beth Marks to talk about the impacts the new FAFSA timeline has on student recruitment.

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Who is Mary Beth Marks?

Executive Director for Strategic Enrollment Marketing and Campus Visits & Events at University of the Pacific.

In this Episode

Mary Beth Marks, Executive Director for Strategic Enrollment Marketing and Campus Visits and Events at University of the Pacific, joins FYI host Gil Rogers to talk about the latest information on this year’s FAFSA application timelines, and what institutions and students can do to best strategize and prepare for the delayed rollout and the challenges that it will present.

Mary Beth also shares some insights on some of the long-term benefits of the overhaul to the FAFSA, despite the current implementation challenges. These are challenges that face all sides of higher education and this episode offers some good advice on and empathy for dealing with them.

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Episode Transcript

The Challenges and Impacts of the New FAFSA Timeline with Mary Beth Marks 

Publishing Date: March 21, 2024

[00:00:00] Gil: Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, in our continuing coverage of the new FAFSA rollout, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mary Beth Marks, Executive Director for Strategic Enrollment Marketing and Campus Visits and Events for University of the Pacific. She’s also the Associate Consultant for Ruffalo Noel Levitz, RNL. We sit down and we talk about Mary Beth’s perspectives on how to best support families and students during this process, as well as her predictions on how the new FAFSA rollout will impact yield at institutions across the country. Let’s listen in.

[00:00:46] Mary Beth: I saw a post, someone’s LinkedIn post, last night because I wanted to see, like, general what people are saying right now about it. One person had posted that they thought, because Louisiana recently took away that requirement, that you don’t have to file a FAFSA as a graduation requirement, which I don’t think is a smart move. I mean, they’re already one of the lowest states with higher ed. I mean, even high school graduation, much less, college graduation, also, a less economically diverse state. So, there’s a lot of need in that state. And not making filing the FAFSA mandatory as part of high school graduation, I think, is a bad move.

This person’s argument was, decoupling it would, then, no longer make institutions reliant on that FAFSA information to determine enrollment or to figure enrollment. It should be institutional-aid-only, and then the students who thought they might need financial aid should file a FAFSA, which I don’t necessarily agree with that.

[00:01:47] Gil: To quote Han Solo from Star Wars, that’s not how the force works.

[00:01:51] Mary Beth: Right, right. Yes. Like, totally, I mean that sounded like somebody who doesn’t, maybe is only on the fringes of higher ed, probably, or not really in tune with other diverse groups that are in your enrollment pool who really need this extra support to get that-

[00:02:10] Gil: Yeah.

[00:02:11] Mary Beth: … get that done. So, they can’t afford school or know that it’s even an option, because if you don’t do it, you might just assume you can’t afford it.

[00:02:19] Gil: Yeah. Well, and it’s almost a cut-off-our-nose-despite-our-face type scenario where the intent is, okay, let institutions start packaging, but if they don’t have information that they would use to start packaging or awarding certain awards…

[00:02:34] Mary Beth: Yeah, not everything is merit. [crosstalk 00:02:37] merit.

[00:02:38] Gil: Oh, insanity. Well, you were on a webinar recently with Concept3D on this very topic, and I’d love for you to, kind of, give us a high level on that experience and what you guys talked about, so that we’ll use that as the foundation for the conversation.

[00:02:54] Mary Beth: Okay. Yeah, so, a couple of us got together with Shiro from Concept3D to talk about FAFSA, like, the delays and what you can do as an institution to continue nurturing your enrollment pool for fall 2024. And people… every institution has a different approach, but I think the underlying theme of all of that between all of us was educating, educating our applicant pool and their parents, too, or whoever’s supporting that student is very important, even when you didn’t have FAFSA delays or when we were talking about prior year, like, I don’t know how many years ago that was, and I’m not going to say, because that would, kind of, date my time in higher ed. But there’s been some shifts over the years.

So, I think every time something has changed in that process, because when you talk about going back to what I mentioned I saw on LinkedIn, we are joined with FAFSA results. There is no decoupling of FAFSA results. If your mission is access to education and you truly believe in everybody having this opportunity to attend an institution of higher ed, then you should not, by any means, remove FAFSA from your process.

In that sense, everybody who talks about educating the population, Zoom webinars still seem to be the number one thing that people are still using. And they tend to be highly attended versus other types of webinars. So, Zoom fatigue definitely exists. Not in this topic area, though. It seems to be very very well-attended. And I think it’s because it’s in the news, and, again, going back to that LinkedIn, there’s a lot of, I think, misinformation out there or conflicting information out there that families are also consuming. And they’re not quite sure what to do, at that time.

But I think again, like, the biggest thing is trying to educate as much as you can through whatever platform that you can. So, we talked about some of the people on the panel with me were using Zimi to communicate. We’re using text messages to communicate. We’re doing mailers, again, to remind students of their merit aid and their overall package. Some of us were fortunate enough to get a financial aid calculator or a CSS profile to try to get students and their families to use so they can make these educated decisions sooner rather than later. Again, we’re still guessing on a FAFSA timeline. We’re here mid-March, I think some of us have gotten some files to test. But reality is, in my mind, my timeline, you’re drawing on my experience from overseeing financial aid and being a VP of an enrollment at other institutions, this would be lucky mid-April we’re able to send out award letters to as many people as we package.

That’s if they didn’t get flagged for verification, which DOE has said they would, loosen up restrictions this year and flagless. But still, that’s another hurdle for students and their families to cross in order to get the funding information that they need to make a decision.

[00:05:54] Gil: So, I want to go back to a part that you were talking about, it’s interesting with things like Zoom fatigue, right, and how you and I have been doing virtual event type stuff together for a while now. We’re together on virtual event platforms during COVID. And I think the overarching narrative during that time was people don’t attend full sessions or everything that you put out or care about everything you put out, but they care about what they care about when they care about it, right? And right now, if you’re not hosting regular presentations and content to update families about things like your prior process for the FAFSA and what your plans are, that’s a big miss for a lot of institutions.

You also mentioned educating, right? I think there’s some areas where, you know, I think back to when I was in admissions at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, we were doing webinars before webinars were cool, I like to say. And one of the most popular things we did was our financial aid workshop sessions where we educated on basic things. What’s the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized? What’s the difference between a grant and a loan?

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[00:07:40] Gil: I think one of the most important things that you touched on is making sure we’re educating families, right? And I think if you were to wave a magic wand and be able to make sure that all families know X, Y, and Z, what would those things be?

[00:07:54] Mary Beth: Oh, one would be file the FAFSA, even if there’s a delay right now, if you’re seeing things in the news that schools aren’t getting the information… which is true, we’re not getting your information yet. But we will. And even if you think, “I don’t know if I qualify,” I still think it’s a worthwhile process to go through it because they have adjusted what we used to call EFC (expected family contribution) is now student aid income. And I think those are important things to think about, moving forward, in terms of, what do I qualify for? And what do I not qualify for? You don’t know until you do it. So, it is important to file the FAFSA. And it’s not only important for us internally as a marker of progress or how we’re doing in our admitted student pool, but important for you, important for them as a family to make those decisions, having the most information that you can have in front of you.

So, definitely want to be pushing that out, that it is a process that you should do, even if you don’t think it’s, like, going to happen right now, that we won’t get your information right now. That’s true. We will not get that immediately. We never did, honestly. There is a delay. But knowledge is power. And having that knowledge in front of you to help you make those decisions is very important.

[00:09:09] Gil: I remember when I was a student, the overarching narrative was you want to file the FAFSA immediately when you can, like, the first possible day to be able to, because that’s your spot in line to get considered more aid packages, right?

[00:09:23] Mary Beth: First come, first serve, institutional [inaudible 00:09:25], those type of things, right? Before we run out, I haven’t worked at an institution where we ran out of aid yet. So, I don’t want to perpetuate that narrative and say, like, you have to do it immediately. But it is an important piece of that whole college going process.

You know, if we had a great year and we are also watching, for example, our discount rate, then sure, yes, it’s very important that you file first or file as soon as you can, so that we can package you and give you the best amount that we can give you.

[00:09:58] Gil: Yeah. And even if there’s not a cap on the amount of aid that’s being awarded, but you’re prioritizing who is filed first because you have full information, you’re still going to get your information faster, right? So, it’s not meant to fear monger. It’s more meant to just, it’s a step in the process and it’s better to have it sit there in the queue waiting for you than for it to not be there.

[00:10:21] Mary Beth: Right, right, because it is… that’s a big shift for families and their students coming from secondary to higher ed. It can be stressful. So, the last thing you want to do is be trying to figure out how you can afford to pay for this college or university that your family and your student have decided you’re going to attend and you’re putting in financial information, which already can be a stressful topic for anybody, regardless of what you’re doing.

So, I think, again, it’s just that importance of doing it. Whether you think you would get anything, whether you think you qualify or not, it’s still an important piece of the entire process. And I have heard that… I haven’t tried it, but I have heard that it is simpler to do than it has been previous years. So, I think that’s another…

[00:11:04] Gil: I think that the overarching, kind of, feel good part narrative that people are having, that I’m seeing on LinkedIn and in conversations that I’m having, is, you know, it’s a crappy implementation for this year with the timing and how that’s happening. But long term, once we get through this “bad cycle,” the process will be simpler for families long term, right? And so, that’s the silver linings, I guess.

[00:11:29] Mary Beth: That’s the win, yes. And what we have to remember in higher ed is that’s not really about us. It’s about these students and their families that we are serving.

[00:11:37] Gil: I’m glad you said that, because I think one of the challenges that I’ve been talking with folks, we’ve had a number of guests over the past few weeks in our continuing coverage of the new FAFSA rollout, right? And so, the conversations have ranged from, nobody’s really panicking. We’re just planning for different scenarios. Then there’s the, “We’re doing all of these things, CSS profile and net price calculators and estimated aid packages based off of SAI and all those sorts of elements. And then there’s the sky is falling crowd, right? And so, there’s, a range of people.

But I think when you think about the families in this process, many of these families are families that also were impacted by COVID hitting them at the beginning of their high school experience, dealing with isolation issues, and dealing with remote education that was pieced together and brought together. And so, now that we’re dealing with a… I feel for the families that are in this process, because that’s a double whammy to have the beginning of their high school education experience impacted by this global pandemic. And now, when they’re trying to go to college, this process that is completely out of their control, completely out of the institution’s control, but it’s impacting them and the stress and anxiety of getting through the process. So, in that spirit of, like, educating, how do you show empathy to families throughout this process? And how should your peers think about doing it that way?

[00:13:00] Mary Beth: Oh, well, I think that, again, if people have questions, you know, answer. There’s no wrong question. I know we all probably say that in any higher ed thing that we do, whether it’s, like, a application workshop, admitted student day, those types of things, but it’s making sure that these families and their students know that you’re available to them throughout their process.

And part of that, too, I think, is not feeding into that fear mongering the sky is falling group. And really going into, like, “Okay, we know there’s a bump in the road. This is what we’re doing to help our community get through it. And then next year, moving forward, here’s what we’re going to do to make sure that you have smooth sailing from here on out.”

There’s nothing we can control that the DOE is doing. It is out of our control. The only thing that we can control is, when it gets here, when we get those ISIRs, how we process them, and how we communicate that information to our populations. And that’s what we really need to focus on to keep positive experience.

[00:13:59] Gil: And in an election year, if there’s one thing we can all agree on is that we can all just blame the government for all these [inaudible 00:14:06].

[00:14:06] Mary Beth: Right. I mean, yes, this time, it isn’t us. Yeah. I mean, if we get these ISIRs and we fall flat on our faces in the processing piece and getting this information out to students and their families because we didn’t prepare, because… I mean, if you want to look at another positive thing, you’ve had this entire timeline to prepare for the unknown, I guess, because you don’t really know how this info is going to come in. But it’s an opportunity for you and your staff to think about, how can we support questions? Do we need to beef up, like, our chat hours? Do we have a live chat? Do we have AI chat that we’re relying on?

[00:14:41] Gil: And are the answers in the AI chat going to be accurate based on the current situation?

[00:14:46] Mary Beth: Exactly. Yes. Or even if you don’t have AI chat, if it’s one that you’re feeding information to, make sure you’re updating that and that you’ve reviewed the information in there, because you want to make sure every mode of communication that you have with your parents and their students is available to them and is accurate. That’s going to be the number one thing that will likely then cause parents to lose faith in you as an institution. It’s not having this accurate information available to them.

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[00:16:05] Gil: So, when I originally reached out to you about being on the podcast, the topic was going to be focused on yield, right? The plan was to have this great conversation about planning yield for this cycle. We’re going to drop it in, you know, towards the end of April, and it’s going to be ripe. And obviously, the situation has changed and evolved, right? And so, I do want to talk to you about what your thoughts are on the new FAFSA rollout and the potential impacts on yield.

And I’ll lay that foundation for that question. Currently, we’re seeing a pretty significant decrease in new FAFSA filing this cycle, in large part because of these challenges. What are your predictions, as far as the impact that this is going to have on yield for institutions when it comes to timing of packages being available post-May 1st deadlines, and if and when those get adjusted, the, the reality of a truncated timetable, because we don’t have the same data that we would normally have in our predictive models that help us to guide a lot of these decisions, right? So, what are your thoughts on new FAFSA rollout and the impact on yield?

[00:17:09] Mary Beth: Okay. So, new FAFSA rollout impact on yield. Obviously, May 1 is no longer… it’s not a thing. In my opinion, it was always an institutional benchmark. We created it for ourselves, so we would have a good idea of what fall would look like and what we needed to do to make our fall numbers. So, May looked like, May 1, it’s close. I mean, we might as well make it May 4th, you know. That would have been great. But hey, they didn’t ask us, Gil.

[00:17:35] Gil: Star Wars references abound.

[00:17:37] Mary Beth: Yes. I think, this year, if you are at an institution that had formerly relied on May 1 as your benchmark for the fall, that’s nice, but that’s probably not what’s going to happen. Obviously, you can see that with people extending their deposit deadlines into mid-May. I would not be shocked to see some of the bigger institutions, the more selective institutions, extend even deeper into the month of May.

And so, for the rest of us, I think that means it’s going to be more of an extended, obviously, an extended yield season. It always has been where I have been, where we’ve worked. We’ve either on… we’re on a rolling admissions, so yield happened all summer, or we are still working past some of, like, other priority deadlines where we’ve been a second-choice institution.

It’s not anything new for us, but for some people this might be a new thing. So, one, I think is, again, I just think it’s going to be whoever gets that packaged information out the door the quickest is going to be at the top of lists. If you are already a one, two, or three on an applicant status in terms of applying and now it’s even more critical to have that information out there because your timeline is truncated, so they have less of a time to make this decision, but they’re also going to feel more pressured because, before, a lot of times, they like to have this decision made, “Here’s where I’m going before graduation. So, everybody can announce it, and I can tell my friends and family here’s where I’m going to go, here’s my scholarship amounts,” those types of things.

So, definitely, it’s going to be who can get that information packaged and out the door. That’s going to extend your yield season, and it’s going to roll into melt. So, melt is also going to be very… not that it wasn’t always a serious thing to consider over the summer, but even more so now. Because now, when families are comparing their offers, it’s not just, “We’ve packaged and awarded, here you go.” It’s going to be, “We’ve packaged and awarded. And now, we are expecting some feedback where they might ask us for, you know, is there additional aid available?” I would expect later change of circumstances forms that groups will have to look at, however that process is at your institution, to determine aid, which will also impact yield.

The way to extending the deadline for the more selective service, universities, also going to impact other people’s yields, because now, they’ll be potentially going into their wait lists a little bit deeper or a little bit longer than what we are used to for, if you’re a second or third choice, definitely going to extend that yield season out even further.

[00:20:11] Gil: So, I want to talk about, particularly, the timeline piece because I think there’s… obviously, there’s different categories of institutions that students are enrolling at. For many institutions that know that they’re not always the top choice of every student that they’ve admitted, every cycle, there is the inevitable time when the flagship public or the larger school or the more selected school goes to their wait list to fill specific pockets or what have you. And so, that trickles down into the next level of schools. That timeline is going to now completely change or is pushed back. And we run into issues with budgeting on campuses and issues with orientations, all of those sorts of things. So, for, for institutions in that latter category, what are some things you think we should think about doing to, kind of, insulate ourselves from the waterfall, that effect that is inevitable?

[00:21:06] Mary Beth: I think, for once, don’t neglect your current applicant pool, even if you feel like you have met your application goal that you had in order to get the class that you wanted. It’s not a usual year. Again, it’s not a usual year. So, like, we’re going into, like, three years of weird enrollment years. I really thought this was going to be my benchmark year where everything… the stars aligned. This is, like, anything, you know, I’ve told you before, Gil, anything pre-COVID. Those benchmarks don’t matter to me anymore because the whole process has shifted since COVID. It shifted with there’s been delays. We have seen students and their families not apply as early. And it’s just trickled through the entire cycle. Now, you have this FAFSA piece as well that’s going to shift again in terms of when these decisions come out.

So, I think don’t neglect your applicant pool, your current pool. If you have the ability to do historical modeling on anything at all, lean into that. Take a look at that. See if there’s some pockets in there that you can continue to work, that maybe they are… have first or second choices. But, you know, if they don’t get selected by those, that group would, maybe, come towards you. So, that’s a group that I would definitely keep working. So, again, don’t neglect your applicant pool.

Don’t neglect your yield pool, either. Again, historical data. If it’s showing you that these groups are likely to yield, continue to work them. Even if you’re past May 1, I’m sure everybody will be doing the same thing as continuing to communicate with these groups. But it’s not just, “Here’s your award,” but, “Think about other stories that you can tell around that supplement your institution.” So, it’s not just affordability, but it’s outcomes and it’s other learning things that you’ll get here at this institution that you might not get at institution A or B. So, this is why you should choose C, us. Pick us.

[00:22:59] Gil: And I think one of the things, and this is, you know, I like to draw parallels to past things. And I was working with a school years ago that was one of those institutions, and it happens every cycle, that inadvertently sent acceptance notifications to students who had incomplete applications. At least, they didn’t send it to their denied student list, but it was to students who didn’t have complete applications.

And I was speaking to their VP at that point, and the lemonade out of lemons scenario for that was they had to quickly and proactively reach out to those students, coach them, help them to understand. And they sent a certified letter saying to ignore the other letter and all that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, the positive angle of it was it resulted in their admissions counselors having to actually be admissions counselors and not just application processors right? You know, have empathy for people who are in these roles while students and families had to go through COVID and the stress and the distance education, all that sort of stuff. Admissions people had to go through that on their end as well not too long ago. And now, we have this, kind of, extraordinary circumstance that’s impacting the cycle for admissions and financial aid officers, even in the aftermath of great resignation and not having full staffs and having to be more efficient and whatnot. But the opportunity here is to get back to the people side of all of this and focus on supporting families through this process, using your models as a guide, because, you know, like you said, this isn’t your benchmark year where you can have anything compare year over year. But you can at least use that as your, “Here’s my priority for the people I need to work with and support,” because you have some data available to, to guide direction.

[00:24:34] Mary Beth: Yeah. For sure, definitely. Take a look at your historical modeling. Again, work with IR. I think that’s something that I didn’t bring up but when we’re talking about this extended yield season and melt, it’s also making sure that you’re communicating with other entities across campus that touch your first year population and making sure that, one, they know what you’re doing, but you also know what they’re doing, like, orientation, like you mentioned, will this mean that this orientation have to be later? Maybe not, probably not. I think you can keep that the same. But make sure that they know what you are working on and that they’re not, perhaps, sending out conflicting information. So, you want to make sure, like, everything is aligned. So, it’s, again, I think always an issue in higher ed. I think we are known for our silos. And this is an opportunity to, absolutely, just like COVID, to bring in those other groups and communicate with them, like, “Here’s how we think things are going. Here’s what we’re doing to make these things continue to go the direction that we want to.”

Throw out some suggestions for them. I did that this morning with one of our colleges when we’re talking about yield. Here’s a group that you all can really focus on in terms of yielding for your programs.

[00:25:46] Gil: Right, right. And like you said, talking to orientation about orientation ahead of time so you’re not conflicting is something we do every cycle anyway, or should be doing every cycle anyway. It’s the context now and why it’s so important, this changed.

So, Mary Beth, thank you so much for being on today and for sharing some of your thoughts and insights with our listeners. Before I let you go, this is your time to tell people how the best ways to get in touch with you and to keep that conversation going.

[00:26:16] Mary Beth: Oh, yeah, for sure, you have to find me on LinkedIn. And it’s… I think it’s MBM in higher ed. That’s my LinkedIn handle. Or, you could just put in Mary Beth Marks. So, definitely find me. There’s a few of us out there, but I have the most entertaining LinkedIn profile out of all of of them.

[00:26:30] Gil: You do. Pirate outfits and everything abound, it’s a great follow.

[00:26:34] Mary Beth: Yeah.

[00:26:35] Gil: Well, we’ll make it easy for our listeners. We’ll put a direct link to your LinkedIn in the episode notes. So, if you don’t already connect with Mary Beth, please do so there. And we will see you all next time on FYI. Thanks.[00:26:48] Mary Beth: Bye.

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