Research & Recommendations to Help Students Succeed

1. Session 47 Research & Recommendations to Help Students Succeed Ed Pacchetti | Dec. 2015 U.S. Department of Education 2015 FSA Training Conference for Financial Aid Professionals

2. Agenda • Introductions • Federal Student Aid Behavioral Science Insights and Borrower Outreach • Lumina Foundation Form and Formula: How the Federal Government Distributes Aid to Students • Ideas 42 Breaking Behavioral Barriers in the Financial Aid System

3. Adopting the insights of behavioral science will help bring our government into the 21st century in a wide range of ways - from delivering services more efficiently and effectively; to accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy; to helping workers find better jobs, gain access to educational opportunity, and lead longer, healthier lives.“ — President Barack Obama, September 15, 2015

4. The Student Aid Bill of Rights Finding New and Better Ways to Communicate with Student Loan Borrowers. By January 1, 2017, the Secretary shall also, in consultation with the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, develop and implement at least five behaviorally designed pilot programs to identify the most effective ways to communicate with borrowers to maximize successful borrower repayment and help reduce delinquency and default and report to the President, through the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, on the status and results of those pilot programs.

5. Federal Student Aid Borrower E-mail Campaigns Over 2 million borrowers were sent e-mails in Fiscal Year 2015 through four behaviorally informed pilots: • Borrowers that missed a payment • Borrowers in default • Borrowers at risk of withdrawing from school • Borrowers in income-driven repayment that needed to complete their annual recertification

6. Federal Student Aid • Federal Student Aid makes use of data and research such as: • Customer segmentation • FAFSA completion data • Customer surveys of students and borrowers • A/B message testing • Experimental sites • Best practices • Behavioral insights, for example…

7. Behavioral Insights and Borrower E-mails

8. Social and Behavioral Sciences Team • Results from Borrower E-mail Campaigns • To help Federal student-loan borrowers stay on top of their payments, SBST and FSA sent a reminder e-mail to over 100,000 borrowers who had missed their first payments. Reminder e-mails to Federal student-loan borrowers who missed their first payment led to a 29 percent increase in the number of borrowers making a payment. • To increase awareness of income-driven repayment plans among student loan borrowers, SBST and FSA sent an informational e-mail about IDR plans to over 800,000 borrowers who had fallen behind on their payments. The message led to a fourfold increase in applications for IDR plans.

10. http://youtu.be/Xd_KIvNjLAs

11. Josh Martin, Senior Associate

12. Are systems designed to help or hinder?

13. What you were may have been doing last night

14. Why does the house always win? • “I’m due for a win” • “It has to even out soon” • “Ride the hot hand, baby!” “Gambler’s” or “hot hand” fallacy

15. Weird things we allother people do

16. What does the science say?

17. You have one job… Say out loud the color of the shape you see on the screen.

26. BLUE

27. When might students need to think carefully? FAFSA completion Course registration Choosing among aid options

28. Standard Model of Decisions and Actions I want X So, what should I do? I get X Yes A Yes No B No Don’t know

29. BEHAVIORAL Model of Decisions and Actions I want X So, what should I do? I get X Is it easy? Am I in the right mood? Yes A Yes No B No Don’t know Will it take a long time? Can I put it off?

30. BEHAVIORAL Model of Decisions and Actions Problem: Students are not applying for financial aid (even though they’re eligible to) Traditional perspective: • They lack information • They don’t want/need aid • Not enough aid is available Behavioral perspective: • The form is a hassle to fill out • It contains things that make students question whether they’re “right” for college

31. The ideas42 Methodology REDEFINEPROBLEM FIND ANOTHER BOTTLENECK DEFINE DIAGNOSE DESIGN TEST DEFINEDPROBLEM ACTIONABLE BOTTLENECKS SCALABLE INTERVENTION STATEDPROBLEM CAPACITY AND SCALABILITY BEHAVIORAL MAP CONTEXT RECONNAISSANCE INTERVENTIONCONCEPT POLISH INTERVENTION CLARIFYOUTCOMES ROBUST EXPERIMENT DISENTANGLE PRESUMPTIONS HYPOTHESIZED BOTTLENECKS DETERMINEFEASIBILITY IDENTIFY SIDE EFFECTS consumer ideas42 partner sequential iterative as necessary

32. Project 1 Increasing FAFSA Applications with Behavioral Design

33. Problem: Only 18% of students file by the priority deadline; some never do 1. In 2011-13 http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/07/pf/college/fafsa-financial-aid/ • Priority filers are guaranteed maximum aid package • Nationally, priority filers are offered 2x as much aid as those who apply later • Nationally, at least 2 million students did not receive grants they qualify for because they did not file the FAFSA1

34. Behavioral Barriers to Filing 1 4 Students do not understand what information they need to file the FAFSA Priority deadline not salient at the right time 2 5 Students do not adequately plan to collect the information they’ll need (once they know) Inaccurate mental model of who receives financial aid 3 6 Parent information is difficult to obtain and may require significant effort by both student and parent Misperceived social norms of how many students submit the FAFSA

35. Solution 1: student action Solution 2: parent action Population: 63,000 continuing students Treatment group: 8 behavioral e-mails sent to students 3 sub-treatments compared BE e-mail, short BE e-mail, and peer BE e-mail Control group: 1 standard ASU e-mail sent to students* Population: 22,000 continuing students with parent e-mails on file Treatment group: 2 behavioral e-mails sent to parents Control group: no communications* *Note this is standard protocol for ASU Solution: Behavioral communications to students and parents before deadline before priority deadline

36. Solution 1: Facilitating student action

37. Solution 2: Facilitating parent action

38. **indicates significance at the 95% level We increased priority FAFSA filers by as much as 72% +72% +52% +38% ** ** **

39. **Indicates significance at the 95% level We increased total FAFSA filings by up to 9% +9% ** ** **

40. Project 2 Choosing courses to stay eligible for financial aid

41. Problem: Choosing Courses at Valencia College We observe: Valencia students register for courses that are not relevant to their major, jeopardizing their federal aid We want: Valencia students to register for more relevant courses, maximizing their aid eligibility

42. What Leads Students Off Track? Before registering… After registering…

43. Solution 1: Make the Right info Salient clear, easy action steps only the “right” information ideal sequencing of help

44. Solution 2: Improve Feedback with Action Steps clear, easy action steps friendly, personal tone salient consequences

45. E-mails increased aid offered by 3% for all students E-mails increased aid offered by 4% for minority students Did the solutions improve aid eligibility? 3% increase ($150) 4% increase ($182)

46. Project 3 Take-up of work-study

47. Fall 2014 data Problem: Few eligible students apply for work-study jobs

48. Behavioral barriers prevent application Students did not have the correct mental modelabout work- study jobs Application deadline not salient Hassle factors in the application process prevented action

49. 12 e-mails designed to target barriers 1 Shape the right mental modelof SEED jobs — emphasize financial and academic benefits in clear language 2 Make deadline salientand force a moment of choice 3 Reducehassle factors with plan-making activity

50. **significant at the 95% level 1. Not a significant result. A large portion of applications were never reviewed due to organizational constraints Results: More applicants and applications Number of Hires1 Number of Unique Applicants Number of Applications ** ** +30% +60% 55 hires in treatment 50 hires in control <