The Challenge
Over a third of high school graduates in 2018 did not complete the FAFSA, missing out on $2.6 billion in free money for college. This is alarming given that student loan debt, at $1.56 trillion in 2020, is the second highest consumer debt category in America. Thus, in an effort to get more students to apply for federal financial aid, we asked ourselves
how might we make the FAFSA application easy and accessible to high school students?
Background
I interned at Earnest as a design lead for a growth project focusing on helping high school students in their college financial journey. When I joined, the product direction had already been set to develop a tool to help students fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid(FAFSA) form.
Earnest
Design Lead
12 weeks, Summer 2020
Product Pivot, Design & User Research
Reflection
Don't let being new stop you from speaking up
After the first round of research, I quickly began to question whether we were tackling the right problem with the first product idea. I was initially hesitant to speak up because I was new to the team and an intern. However, after talking to the senior designers and researchers at Earnest, I gathered the courage to express to my team how I felt about the direction we were taking. In hindsight, I'm really glad I did because that caused us to reevaluate and to pivot product direction towards one that better served user needs.
Discovery
Our team hopped on a one-week long design sprint, focused on making the FAFSA application easier. At the end of the sprint, we had a simple prototype ready and took it to target users for testing. We quickly uncovered something unexpected: the government FAFSA application has drastically improved and is no longer a big pain point for users.
In other words, we were not looking at the right problem.
I strongly advocated for the team to spend more time conducting research and pivot product direction if necessary - and that was what we did. I created the below journey map to further understand high school students' college funding journey.
I also partnered with our user researcher to conduct user interviews with recent high school graduates to learn more about their financing decisions and experiences.
Even if I apply [for FAFSA], I don't think I will get much. It's not worth the work
Misperception
Many students mistakenly assumed that they won't qualify for FAFSA or that it will affect their chances of getting into good colleges and thus skip it entirely.
One of my dream colleges was Stanford but the price was so high that I didn't even bother to apply
Overestimation of actual cost
Students confuse the sticker price of college for the actual out of pocket cost, underestimating the amount of aid they can get. This resulted in students "downgrading" their college choice.
Reframing the Problem
Our second round of research reaffirmed our earlier finding that the new FAFSA form is now straightforward and simple to use. We realized it would tackle current user pain points while still being valuable to Earnest as a growth product if instead of FAFSA, we solved for:
Design Goals
Prioritize trust and clarity
To provide users with an accurate estimate, the product first needs some information from users. How do we gather personal and financial information from high school students in a way that is trustworthy and easily understandable?
Provide simple results
What will be the best way to present the estimation results in a visual yet straightforward way?
Final Design
Focus on the goal, not the task
Made this component visually prominent so users are encouraged to proceed through the flow to get their personalized results
Make the tough questions easy
Made it clear in the flow where users can find the exact answers to the difficult questions
Tooltip to help users make an informed estimate for those without an access to tax forms
No guesswork for users
Quick takeaway: Should you fill out the FAFSA?
One sentence summary followed by a call-to-action to fill out the FAFSA application
Quick takeaway: Which college will cost the least?
A horizontal bar graph visualizing original sticker price, estimated actual cost and financial aid