Facebook and Twitter are great for being in the know with your friends and family. They are also pretty useful tools for spreading around general information, like how the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency came up with a novel way of assisting students apply for college aid by posting student-made videos on its Facebook profile.
Students created four 'peer-to-peer' presentations on the
Facebook page of PHEAA to encourage students to complete their Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms. This move aims to inform students that they can secure funding federal, state, private and need-based financial aid by simply working with their FAFSA.
This idea is something that educational institutions all over America need to copy, or at least emulate in one way or another. This blog right here is one way students can be informed about FAFSA, but many students out there are either ignorant of or intimidated by the prospect of filing their FAFSAs. Getting swamped by the FAFSA's questions is one particularly prominent problem, even if the FAFSA is steadily improving and becoming user-friendly with the passage of time.
This peer-to-peer approach powered by social networks is one way that students themselves can more easily spread awareness of FAFSA to their fellows. If you are a student, it also pays to keep track of the Facebook and Twitter profiles of local educational institutions in your area. Not only will you be more aware of what is going on in your campus, but you will also be more likely to get a heads up on any potential grants, scholarships or forms of financial aid while you are at it – as well as keeping track of
FAFSA deadlines.
So log on to Facebook and Twitter, start hunting for the profiles of your local educational institutions and keep a sharp eye on any developments that may come up. You may just find useful bits of information that you would have normally missed out on.