By Jeremy Tiers, Senior Director of Admissions Services
2 minute read
Earlier this month I shared an article about the importance of communicating with parents and cultivating those relationships sooner rather than later – especially with the parents of your admitted student population, which is the focus of today’s article.
If you do that, one of the topics you will definitely get asked about is financial aid.
Yes, talking about money can be uncomfortable, but we both know it’s an extremely crucial conversation that admissions, enrollment marketing, and financial aid professionals need to be prepared to lead… especially with the added uncertainty around this year’s FAFSA and how that will affect the timing of sending out financial aid awards.
Speaking of the FASFA, remember, everyone else is in the same boat as you are.
Keeping that in mind, here are some tips that will help you be proactive when it comes those initial financial aid conversations.
As much as we might want students to take a more active role when it comes to talking about financial aid, parents will continue to be the lead actors and actresses when it comes to conversations involving money. Plus they tend to give way better information, deeper insights, and follow-up in a timely fashion on action items that get discussed.
Make it your goal to uncover the parent questions and priorities, as well as how they’re feeling about the topic. Parents should always feel like you value their input and opinion, and that you (and your colleagues) do a better job of listening than every other school that’s on the student’s list.
Go ahead and craft an email that comes from either the student’s admissions or financial aid counselor. After that determination has been made, here are some key talking points that your message should include:
- Congratulations (or congrats again) on the student getting admitted – it’s exciting and a big deal! If the email comes from the financial aid counselor, use language to make it sound like that counselor heard about the student getting admitted from their admissions counselor.
- Acknowledge that the financial aid process has a lot of moving parts, isn’t done the same way by every college, and can quickly become overwhelming and frustrating. Add that your goal is to work closely with the entire family to make things as simple and easy to understand as possible. You could also mention that your school will work hard to get the student every single dollar they qualify for.
- You can, but don’t have to mention as a heads up, that their family will be getting a lot of messages from colleges about the FAFSA over the next month. If you do, briefly explain the FAFSA is a financial aid form that the federal government uses to determine whether a student will qualify for additional financial assistance on top of the financial aid that your school will offer.
- End your email with a call to action that asks for their answer to a question such as, “What’s your biggest concern when it comes to financial aid?” Or, “How are you feeling about the financial aid process?”
- For your subject line you could use something like, “An important conversation about college”. Or, “Would like to talk with you about financial aid”.
Incorporating the parents of your admitted students into the recruiting conversation and talking about financial aid and paying for college early on has and will continue to be a proactive strategy that helps schools increase their yield.
Last but not least, make sure any feedback that parents offer finds its way into your CRM so that future conversations can feel more personal.
Want to talk more about something I said in this article? I’m happy to connect. Simply reply back, or email me here.
And if you found this article helpful, forward it to someone else on your campus who could also benefit from reading it.