FAFSA help and resources are available
Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan joined the higher education community at a press conference to urge students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. In Minnesota, completions are now down 12.2 percent from last year, due in part to technical difficulties associated the with new FAFSA form launched in December. The U.S. Department of Education has worked to address all issues with the form, and across the U.S. leaders are encouraging students to finish filing.
The Office of Higher Education has awarded $15,000 in grants to nonprofits College Possible and Achieve Twin Cities, allowing both organizations to scale up efforts over the summer to provide one-on-one FAFSA support. Contact information to request an appointment, as well as other resources, are available on OHE's FAFSA Completion Resources webpage.
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The Minnesota Office of Higher Education’s FAFSA Tracker Tool is available for high school counselors and college access program staff to track students who are filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The tool can be used for keeping tabs on which students have submitted a FAFSA, checking in to see if the student’s FAFSA is missing signatures, and quickly identifying which students have been selected for verification.
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A first-time grant opportunity, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education awarded $291,000 in Intervention for College Attendance Program - Formerly Incarcerated Students (ICAP FIS) grants to four institutions and community-based organizations to provide support services to students who have formerly been incarcerated.
Through strategies like mentorship, one-on-one navigation support, career exploration and awareness, and holistic reintegration services, the funded programs will allow for increased and personalized reentry services to students who can face many barriers as they pursue a postsecondary pathway after incarceration. Awarded grantees include both metro-based and Greater Minnesota recipients: Faribault Public Schools Adult Education, Minneapolis College, Minnesota North College and Minnesota State University-Mankato.
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The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has funding available for grants to develop a student support personnel workforce pipeline. The goal of this program is to support students to complete accredited programs and become licensed school psychologists, school nurses, school counselors, and school social workers.
In addition to increasing the workforce, the program is intentionally designed to increase the number of student support personnel who identify as People of Color and/or Indigenous.
To be eligible for the grant, colleges or universities must offer licensure programs in each of the fields of school psychology, school social work, school counseling, and school nursing. Applications are due by June 7.
The application period is open for the John R. Justice Student Loan Repayment Program until June 14. The program intends to encourage lawyers to become and remain full-time public defenders and public criminal prosecutors. Selected recipients will receive educational loan repayments in exchange for agreeing to serve full-time as a public prosecutor or public defender in Minnesota for an initial three years. After three years, attorneys are eligible to reapply and may receive additional educational loan repayments in exchange for continuing to serve.
Applicants must have already worked as a public prosecutor or defender for at least three years at the time of application.
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