The Power of Collaboration: Transforming the Lives of Students

High School College & Career Counselors often talk about “being on an island by themselves.” It can sure feel like that sometimes, since we are the only people in our school in our exact position. We can often be found sitting in our offices, coming up with our own ideas and determining how to implement them. However, thinking outside that box of “being on an island” can result in some pretty extraordinary things for our students.

As our school’s College and Career Advisor, I regularly check Idaho’s online portal to track my students’ FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) progress. One thing I look for is to see if any of their FAFSAs are incomplete and why so I can contact that student to let them know the steps they need to take in order to complete it. Most times the student had no idea it was not complete.

“James” was missing a parent’s signature on his FAFSA. Connecting with him proved challenging, but when we finally spoke, we talked about how he wanted to enroll in the automotive technology program at North Idaho College, but he didn’t have the money to pay for it. Like many seniors, he hadn’t really connected the dots yet about going to college and how he was going to pay. He didn’t live with his parents; he had moved out and lived with his grandma, and his mom wasn’t going to help with his FAFSA. He was a little unsure about how to answer all my questions about things like legal guardianship; it sounded like his home situation was pretty complicated. I knew I had to determine whether he needed a parent’s signature or if he was able to submit the FAFSA as an independent student, otherwise, he would not receive any federal aid for college. As an independent student, he would likely receive the ~$6,500 Pell Grant. With NIC’s tuition being half that amount, this would equate to free college for James. I dug a little deeper, and James described some things that started to make me wonder if him moving out was a choice, like some seniors make, or something more. So I set out to find some answers, but I needed some help. I needed to reach out to his school counselor and to the North Idaho College representative, who also happens to be a financial aid wizard.

The rest of the story involved a lot of communication between the counselor, James’ grandma, the college rep, James, and myself. Between the counselor’s personal relationship with the family, the college rep’s financial aid expertise, and me facilitating the conversations, by the end of the day we had the information we needed and had taken the necessary actions. Under the circumstances, James was considered to be an independent student, and he didn’t need a parent’s signature to complete his FAFSA. James could go to college – for free– and have money left over to use for living expenses and tools. The NIC rep was overjoyed, James was stunned, and his counselor and I gave each other an emotional high five. 

The following day I walked James through his FAFSA, checked and double-checked, and watched him press ‘submit.’ I couldn’t stop smiling, and James couldn’t believe that his dream of going to college was actually going to happen. This was a kid who only submitted his FAFSA during the FAFSA Work Day event in his government class because I told seniors they should. He thought it was done and didn’t really grasp what having it done actually meant for him anyway. This could have been a story of a quiet kid who wanted to go to college but never got the chance because he “didn’t know what he didn’t know” and didn’t know which questions to ask. But instead, it’s the story of a student who did not fall below the radar because a dedicated school counselor, a tenacious college representative, and a persistent college and career advisor knew which questions to ask and worked diligently together to make sure this student had every opportunity for success. 

Collaboration in the college and career counseling world is powerful. We don’t have others in our schools that are in our exact role; our “colleagues” are the school counselors, the college reps, the apprenticeship program coordinators, and the military recruiters. We work together all the time, and we have an abundance of stories just like this one about James; genuine ‘feel-good stories’ that are the reason we believe our jobs are the best ones in the world. So many students are receiving scholarships, going to college, discovering other educational opportunities they didn’t know existed, and getting financial aid to pay for it because we notice, we ask, we persist, and we talk to each other. Today, I am back in my office, working independently and coming up with ideas on my own about how to best serve the students in our school. But tomorrow, who knows what my colleagues and I will accomplish together to make another student’s dream become a reality.

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Written by Carrie Paquette, Region 1 Next Steps Idaho Ambassador (2021)