Where are we with the FAFSA now? with W. Kent Barnds 

Gil Rogers sits down with W. Kent Barnds, an unapologetic supporter of student success, about the FAFSA Fiasco and where we go from here.

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Who is W. Kent Barnds?

W. Kent Barnds is the Executive Vice President for Strategy & Innovation and VP of Enrollment and Communication at Augustana College.

In this Episode

W. Kent Barnds, executive vice president for strategy and innovation at Augustana College, joins FYI host Gil Rogers to talk about the current state of this year’s FAFSA applications and information which have both been abnormally slow. 

 Kent shares his invaluable insights into the complexities faced by both students and university staff during this transformative period. Gil and Kent delve into the impact of FAFSA simplification on students and universities, including what offers they are able to make to students and how the degree of certainty they can make those offers directly affects the engagement potential for everyone. Discover the challenges and creative solutions being implemented in admissions offices across the country, as we navigate through the treacherous waters of this transformative period in higher education.

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Episode Transcript

Where are we with the FAFSA now? with W. Kent Barnds 

Publishing Date: March 12, 2024

[00:00:00] Gil: All right, welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, we are happy to be joined by Kent Barnds, who is the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Innovation and Vice President of Enrollment and Communication for Augustana College. He is joining us today to talk about our continuing coverage of the new FAFSA rollout.

So, Kent, thank you so much for joining us today. I want to turn it to you to just give everyone a quick introduction who may not follow you on LinkedIn. If they don’t, they should. But I would love for you to introduce yourself, give a little bit of your background. And then we can just hop right in.

[00:00:46] Kent: Great. Well, thanks, Gil. I appreciate the invitation to be with you and look forward to our conversation. Again, my name is Kent Barnds. And I work at Augustana College where I’ve worked, I mean, my 19th year, my 32nd year in enrollment management. And, yeah, this has been a year with FAFSA simplification and all that has happened. So, also appreciate the recommendation to follow me on LinkedIn. They might get some sense of my passion for this particular topic.

[00:01:11] Gil: There you go. And you said 32 years in higher ed enrollment, so you started when you were eight years old, is that about right?

[00:01:19] Kent: Yeah, right. I started on July 6th, 1992 as an admissions counselor at Elizabethtown College, and I worked there for 13 years before coming here to Augustana. I love admissions work. And I think that people who work in admissions and financial aid, they do incredibly important work for higher education and for young people who are about to discover what they’re really equipped to do by attending a college or university.

[00:01:44] Gil: Yeah. So, it sounds like it’s a similar genesis of careers. I want to make sure we get to the FAFSA piece. But I always say to everyone, like, I started my career as an admissions counselor at my alma mater, right? And nobody goes to college to become an admissions counselor, right? That’s not your… there’s no degree in being a road runner for a recruitment office, right? But when I started, it was… I didn’t want to get a real job after I graduated. I wanted to work at a Boy Scout camp in Minnesota for the summer. And so, I got to start a job as an admissions counselor in my alma mater in August, right? And that’s not an August on a pun.

But tell me about, kind of, what’s kept you here. And obviously, it takes a certain level of crazy to stay in higher ed this long in your career, and especially with what’s going on this year. What keeps you going and motivated?

[00:02:30] Kent: Yeah. Well, my story really is a lot like yours. I was one of those political science, history, Spanish, students at Gettysburg College and had never really thought that I was supposed to look for a job when I finished college. And it was actually at a graduation party that somebody asked me if I’d ever thought of going into admissions. It happened to be the woman, her name is Jean Legros, who interviewed me for admission to Gettysburg. She said, “Have you ever thought of going into admissions?” I said, “No, never thought of it.” She said, “Stop by my office on Monday, and let’s put together a resume.” And the rest has been history.

For me, as a political science major, actually, I draw a lot of comparisons. My candidate, Augustana College, I have to get 700 students to choose me every year. And so, it’s been very adaptable, and it’s what keeps me going. I mean, there’s the rush of this work. This year has been a little bit different. It’s an exhausting year, a year where we’ve got to get really creative to serve students. But I just think that the work of admissions people is so important to introduce the possibility of higher ed to students from all different backgrounds. And I’ve had the great joy of doing that for 30-plus years now.

[00:03:39] Gil: There you go. And I, I think about all the posts I see every year about people having jobs that are not in the degree they went to school for, right? And it’s always how many people are in careers and not… well, if everybody got a job in their degree, then nobody would be an admissions counselor, right? And so, we’ve got… there’s silver linings in this whole conversation. So, yeah, so again, appreciate you spending the time hopping on in short order. And prior to starting the recording, you know, we were chatting a little bit about, you know, this is becoming a little bit of a running series here at FYI. We recently had Emily Coleman, who’s the co-founder and CEO of HAI Analytics, talking at a high level from a consultant’s point of view on how she’s working with clients through this process and, kind of, how the recommendations that they’re making. And then we, shortly, thereafter, had Brad Barnett, who’s got a really long title at James Madison University. He’s basically in charge of the whole place, based on his title. Anyway, you’re the same with your title. But he’s also the past president of NASPA and talking about the community of financial aid professionals and what they need to be doing to better support.

And like I mentioned to you prior to, to starting the recording and I’ll reinforce to our listening audience, you’ve been sharing a number of thoughts on LinkedIn about this very topic. And once this series started coming out, I said, “We got to get Kent on to, to talk about this,” because you’ve got thoughts, right? And I want to let you, I want to allow you to have a space to share some of those thoughts. And I want to start the conversation with what you’re hearing from families in this process and what you’re hearing from your staff in this process, because I think these are two areas that are getting highly impacted by these challenges, the former being many of the… half of the group has never been through this process before, right? But they have lived through remote education during COVID and isolation, and now they’re living through this process as part of their entree into the college experience. So, what are some of the things you’re hearing from families, probably mostly from parents, but what are you hearing from families? And what are some of the things that you think institutions need to be doing better to be communicating with them?

[00:05:43] Kent: Yeah. Let’s start with families and students. I, first of all, I really feel for them. Yes, they’re, especially if they’re going through this for the first time, they have a, they’re first in their family to go to college. They don’t know any different about this process. But unfortunately, I think that we, in higher ed, the higher ed media, school counselors have all projected our frustration onto the families. And I think that this has exacerbated the uncertainty, the frustration that they have.

And in fact, I think that, early on, when the rollout started and there were so many bumps and disruptions, we were actively discouraging students and families from completing the FAFSA, because we didn’t want them to get frustrated. And I think that’s probably delayed submission rates.

So, a lot of frustration, uncertainty, difficulty with the lingo. And so, we’ve taken an approach of really trying to reassure and also be as transparent as possible. In some respects, in your communications professional, Gil, you know, what this is all about. There’s a lot of care, do, and prevent. We’re tailoring our messaging to families, letting them know that we’re empathetic to what they’re experiencing, sharing what we know at any particular time, and then also giving them a sense of what they can expect from us.

And I think that’s been really helpful. In fact, I got some really positive feedback from a family that completed our estimator and said that they felt like they’d really been cared for and that we were transparent. But there certainly is a simmering frustration.

Now, if I move to my staff, this is the time when they would be closing on students who they’ve developed relationships with over the course of the last 12 to 18 months. And that’s where people get their cup filled in this, oftentimes, really frustrating work. And so, they’re frustrated. They know that they’re going to have to fit 12 weeks of work into four. They don’t know what that looks like and feels like. And they also know that there are lots of students and families out there that just want the information so they can make a decision.

And part of being an admissions officer is having a great deal of empathy. So, they’re assuming all of that as they go through conversations with prospective students and families. So, in a word, frustration. But I do want to say, my wife and I, we submitted the FAFSA last weekend and it was a great experience. Fewer questions. In fact, when she finished, she said, “Did I do something wrong?” So, even with the frustration and the uncertainty, there probably is a silver lining, which we can talk about it at some point, also, Gil. But that’s what I’m experiencing from both families and from staff.

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[00:09:05] Gil: Yeah. So, it’s interesting because you mentioned it earlier on, is this simplified FAFSA. I think this is far from a simplified process, but at least the form is simplified, right? So, you know, you mentioned institution has an estimator tool, right? What are some of the things that you’re seeing colleagues at other institutions do, in addition to as much as you can share for what you are all doing to better support those families with communication resources? Because you can’t just magically pull an aid package out of thin air, but there are things that you can do to help guide that conversation so that we’re not just sitting and waiting, right?

Because I think that that’s the hardest part of this whole process, is that’s always been part of the college application process, is the stress of the sitting and waiting, which is why we try our best to accelerate response time, get applications processed quicker, get notifications out faster. And now, all of a sudden, kind of, like going to the airport when you’ve already got your check in done on your phone, but then there’s a long line of security and you don’t have clear, right? Like, right now, that’s where we’re at. And so, what are we doing to… or what do you, what are you doing? And what are, what do you see colleagues at other institutions that might be different that are meant to, kind of, alleviate some of those stresses?

[00:10:14] Kent: Yeah. So, we actually committed early on in this year to doing estimates. And we started opening up estimates in November, and we were doing it based on tax returns, and providing, sort of, an assessment of eligibility for aid based on tax returns. And we looked at past modeling to be able to do that. And we did that because we knew that some segments of our applicant pool would want an estimate early in order to make a decision. But we actually saw very little uptake and very little participation in that. In fact, we had fewer than 100 students in our pool who submitted tax returns to get an estimate.

So, we may have misjudged how enthusiastic or excited people were for early estimates. However, in January, when we got news from the Department of Education that they were going to delay our receipt of student financial aid forms until mid-March, we stood up another way of estimating based on SAIs. So, if a family had received a student aid index because they completed the FAFSA successfully, then we were able to, with pretty good precision, provide a financial aid award or an estimated financial aid award. Again, all of these are estimates.

And we saw a little bit better subscription from that. I mean, we had probably 250, 275 students who completed that. But I’ll say, Gil, that I think one of the things that, that I am sensing is that families want a best-and-final. And as long as we have that word, “estimate,” involved, it’s not going to move the decision.

And I, I understand that. I mean, this is a huge decision, and families want all of the information before they make a final choice. So, so, we’ve tried to do what many colleges have done. I mean, there are lots of different ways people are saying that they’re standing up their own internal FAFSA. People are offering awards that they’ll stand behind. But the reality is, until we have a finalized student aid index, everything that we’re doing is an estimate. We’re trying to provide families with as much information as we can.

[00:12:17] Gil: Yeah, and I’ve seen institutions going quickly with resources like CSS profile or a sleep form, or there are things that we can do. But at the end of the day, harping back to my days as an admissions counselor, and I remember the early, early days of traditional search when you would buy your lists. And the minute you get your list, you’ve got to get that to your mail house. You got to get these things executed because you got to be first to the mailbox, right? That was old mantra, and it still is, sadly, to some extent. That’s still the mantra for many institutions, is first to the mailbox. And it’s that same feeling with financial aid packages.

But the reality is, is that being first to the mailbox doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to impact the enrollment because they’re still going to be waiting for offers from other institutions because it’s the financial piece of the decision, not the, “Oh, is this school interested in me?” It’s, “Oh, by the way, there’s this big giant process that’s, kind of, out of the school’s control that we’re all, kind of, waiting for.” And that’s what I was talking with Brad Barnett about on his recent appearance, is that, at the end of the day, everybody can, kind of, put their hands in the air and blame the government to some extent, which is something that I feel like most people can get behind nowadays. But there’s that balance of you want to be first to the mailbox, but you want to be accurate. And speed and accuracy are not always the same thing, right?

[00:13:38] Kent: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, a lot of people have asked, well, is there opportunity for competitive advantage? And I’ve really had to explain to people that it would almost be like somebody applying for a home loan and going to one bank and applying there, and then that bank says, “Oh, it looks like you’re eligible for this loan, so we’re going to give you a loan on behalf of the other bank.” That’s, sort of, what’s going on. And it’s a strange thing because we really are dependent upon the federal government’s involvement in this process, and they’re a single source. Even with the CSS profile, that student aid index isn’t what it is until it’s finalized by the federal government.

The last time we saw, sort of, a technology disruption like this in the enrollment management space was the rollout of the Common Application. There was a new Common Application. And the software was a complete disaster and a complete mess. But there were market solutions. You could stand up your own application. Many places at that same time had their own application or another third party. And it happened at a stage in the recruitment funnel where it was a blip. Yes, it was frustrating, and it birthed the coalition application.

But this is different because the federal government is the single source provider. And it just feels like the federal government hasn’t listened to higher ed professionals throughout this entire process. And I know it’s a bit of a conflict between the House and the Department of Education and their accusations of limited funding, but this has been a mess. And my, sort of, first post on LinkedIn about this disaster and some gaslighting the Department of Education was doing to those of us in higher ed really had me hot because we’ve seen so many things coming that have come to reality. And it’s impacting families. I mean, the filer rate is way behind. It’s impacting those families that have the least amount of resources. Now, colleges are extending the decision date, which means that we’re going to ask students to make decisions when they don’t have frontline support because high school has ended and they don’t have a school counselor. It’s just a mess.

And then there are some real fatal issues, I think, with FAFSA simplification, lack of recognition of multiple students in college is a mess. Working in the Midwest, including farm value in the formula after it’s been excluded for years and years. And if you didn’t know, the average farm in the Midwest is about a $2 million value. Also, including small business value in the formula. There are just some real flaws to this that we all saw coming.

[00:16:18] Gil: Yeah. And it’s hard because it’s a great reminder of the historical context. I remember the year that the Common App challenges happened and “challenges” is the marketing term for it. And you’re right, at the end of the day, many institutions aren’t even on Common App at all. So, it’s really the subset of schools that are. And that you could always go back to your own institutional application. It was really the Common App exclusive schools impacted, then, to the largest degree, right? But at the of the day, there’s sources. They’re making a case for why colleges and universities have to get three quotes from different vendors. Because there you go, so we make it a challenge then for all procurement processes with the exception of things related to the federal government.

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[00:17:59] Gil: So, if you could wave your magic wand and make changes to how… and, you know, part of it is you can’t go backwards. We can only go forwards, right? And so, let’s look at it that way. If you can wave your magic wand and starting today, what are some things that the government could do better or do at all to better support institutions and families in this process now?

[00:18:21] Kent: Yeah. So, first and foremost, I would say for institutions, if the feds, the Department of Education, could turn on our individual dashboard, that would be so very welcome because we don’t even know who has submitted the FAFSA for our institution. All that we know is the larger trends. And each institution has a dashboard. And just understanding volume would be tremendously helpful for us.

The second thing is to make sure that the Department of Education fulfills its promises. Last Friday, we were supposed to get 100 test ISIRs. And at the end of the day, we’ve not received those 100 test ISIRs. Hopefully, they’re coming today or tomorrow. But that was a promise made and we didn’t receive those.

We’ve got to have the Department of Education meet this mid-March deadline, because even if we… even when we start receiving ISIRs, we still have a lot of testing to do. And it feels like we’re going to be into the first part of April before we’re offering financial aid awards. And that was exactly the opposite of what we all wanted for students and families.

Going forward, we’ve got to get back to the rational timetable of October 1st availability and submission. What we’re doing to families this year is really unconscionable. And I don’t know that the concierge service, the $50 million investment the Department of Education is making, is going to make a hill of beans a difference to institutions.

Let us do our work. Get us the ISIRs that we have. Give us an opportunity to communicate with our pools to incentivize FAFSA submissions, so that we can get students and families the information they need. I mean, that’s what we have… that’s what we need right now from the Department of Education.

[00:20:03] Gil: Yeah, it’s hard because I feel like, every time you send a communicate, this is where the… we make jokes about, “Oh, put your hands up and blame the government.” But when you have a timeline that you’re given and you communicate that timeline to families and then the resource is not hit as you would expect, it creates issues.

I know that a lot of the software platforms that are used to support in aid packaging and management of your budgets, et cetera, they’re going to have patches and testing that need to happen in order for them to be able to be used for you to be able to do testing to be able to roll out packages, right? And so, you’ve got a domino effect every single time that this happens, that things get pushed back. I mean, you say early April, that’s the earliest. So, I think you’ve got a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of fast action that needs to happen. And that is starting with the government hitting timelines, right?

So, I, again, Kent, I appreciate your time. I reserve the right to have you back on in six weeks or so as a… and we’ll see where we’re at with some of these timelines. For folks that want to maintain connection with you and pick your brain a little bit, what are some of the best ways that they can get in touch with you?

[00:21:16] Kent: Yeah. Well, thanks for that, Gil. And thanks for a great conversation and your laser sharp focus on this topic, because we need more people talking about this. The first thing that I want to make sure that everybody understands is that, if you know a high school senior and they have not yet submitted the FAFSA, please, please, please, tell them to do that as soon as possible, because we know 100% of the students who don’t submit the FAFSA will never find out what aid for which they’re eligible. And at this time, when we’ve got non-consumptives, not going to college, we want to make sure that we’re able to deliver financial aid and create those pipelines of access to higher ed. So, that’s one message I want to make sure.

The second thing is, let’s continue to have a hope in this process, because I do think that FAFSA simplification, at its core, is absolutely student and family-friendly, to make this process easier and more straightforward. It is a good thing and something that we should all celebrate.

You know, for your listeners who are interested in connecting, easy to find me on LinkedIn, because I have that unusual last name spelling, B-A-R-N-D-S. I would love to connect as people think about this issue, as well as other enrollment management issues. But truly, Gil, I’m really glad that you’re bringing focus to this issue and making it a part of what you’re sharing with your listeners because we got to get this right.

[00:22:37] Gil: Absolutely. I appreciate the positive sentiment, and I appreciate you spending the time, because it’s comments, commentary, and it’s voices like yours that help drive this conversation forward. And so, we’re going to continue with our coverage of the new FAFSA rollout over the next few weeks, as we head into yield season or traditional yield season, which I think is completely redefined this year.

[00:22:59] Kent: Yield month, yield month, we’re calling it.

[00:23:02] Gil: Yield month. Hard stop, not yield. So, I appreciate, again, your time. And we will see you all next time on FYI.[00:23:11] Kent: Thanks so much.

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