What about turning applying for financial aid into a celebration? That’s what McDowell Technical Community College and three other North Carolina institutions did by hosting FAFSA Fiestas. Latino families were invited to campus where they waited amidst a festive atmosphere of food and a DJ playing Spanish/English songs. They then took turns in an upstairs computer lab with bilingual educators helping them fill out their FAFSAs.
The goal of the Fiestas was to boost the number of Latino/a students applying to college, targeting recent high school graduates who hadn’t yet applied for aid or made college plans, as well as prospective students “whose family circumstances might make the process challenging to navigate,” according to The Hechinger Report. The events were hosted by the non-profit College Foundation of North Carolina.
During the Fiestas, education advocates helped families work through issues such as technical concerns, forgotten passwords, federal and state financial aid eligibility for mixed-status families (with at least one parent undocumented), and the fear and hesitation that often comes with disclosing personal immigration information.
Read more about these FAFSA Fiestas here.
