TASFAA and TG Partner to Deliver High School Counselors Workbook
By Belen Valdez, TASFAA High School Partnership Training Committee and Jacob Fraire, TG Educational Alliances and Partnerships

In collaboration with the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, TG and various lender and servicer partners, the committee successfully produced and distributed this year’s version of the TASFAA High School Workbook and presentation.

The workbook explains the financial aid process in an easy-to-understand format. It is a great way for high school counselors, educators, and other partners to learn more about the process as a whole, and is a valuable resource for anyone who has a child getting ready for college.

Producing the Workbook
This year, the committee chose to include more color and photos on the cover and tabs to draw in the readers and catch their attention. Also included as enhancements to this year's publication are:

• Helpful and interesting education statistics, and visual aids to help participants understand financial aid;
• A budget sheet for students that counselors can copy;
• A greater correlation between the workbook and the slide show presentation;
• More charts to explain processes visually; and,
• A section on the College for Texans GO Campaign.

The enhanced workbook has been developed not just from comments from our workshop participants, but also from suggestions given by the wonderful TASFAA workshop trainers. They volunteer their time to conduct these trainings. If it wasn't for them, the workshops would not be such a success.

Historically, the workbook has relied on policy information to communicate with financial aid administrators. "We realized that the high school counselors are not actively involved with policies. Therefore, the manual was a little harder to use and understand," said Brent Hay with TG, an editor of the publication providing support to the committee. "Each year, we have edited out the policy-jargon to make the workbook more user-friendly."

The workbook outlines:

• The goals of financial aid;
• How to conduct a needs analysis for each student;
• The awards and packaging process;
• Federal and state financial aid programs; and
• Federal, state, and alternative loan programs.

In addition, it provides information on scholarships, the College for Texans Go Campaign, and helpful phone numbers and Web sites. The publication also offers a money management budget sheet to help students develop a monthly budget.

The Team and TASFAA’s Partners
Members of the TASFAA High School Partnership Training committee include Monica Alvarado, financial aid counselor with the Pharr/San Juan/Alamo school district, Jareth Dugi from Frost National Bank, and TG's Delton Moore.

The support that the High School Partnership Training Committee has received from you, the members of TASFAA, and TG, coupled with the hard work that the committee members have contributed, made the workbook successful.

The workbook was offered to 2,300 high school counselors who attended the 2003 Annual High School Counselor Financial Aid Workshops hosted by TASFAA and other organizations such as TG, the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), and the Association of Texas Lenders for Education (ATLE).

"The workbook will help Texas high school counselors better prepare students for the financial aspects of going to college," said Brent Hay. "In fact, responses from surveys from 11 of the 25 colleges and universities that hosted the training estimate that the workbooks will help a minimum of 94,925 students."

Positive Feedback
Counselors attending a training session at McMurry University in Abilene wrote, "The book is the best reference source. We'll be able to make handouts for students."

Other Counselor comments from surveys included:
"Excellent manual" — Counselor attending session at Vernon College

"Can make handouts for students" — Counselor attending Lee College

"Glad there was information on credit cards and other financial personal information" — Counselor attending session at Wharton County Junior College

"Excellent manual – lots of great info"; "Workbook is Super!"; "Case studies were beneficial"; "The workbook is awesome – it has come a long way!"; "Book is an excellent resource" — Counselors attending session at the University of Texas-Pan American

"I plan to include what I have learned in my newsletters, not to mention imparting what I've learned with students and parents"; "Workshop and workbook are very beneficial in gaining knowledge to share with students" — Counselors attending session at Lamar State College-Orange

"PowerPoint and manual were most beneficial part of workshop" — Counselor attending Northeast Texas Community College

"Will copy parts of this manual and mail to parents"; "Training manual – very useful"; "Handbook/Workbook most beneficial"; "I can take the workbook home to study this"; "The presentation made some parts of the workbook clear"; "All of it – visual aid and booklet were helpful" — Counselors attending session at El Paso Community College

Looking Ahead
Work has already begun on the 2004-05 edition of the TASFAA High School Workbook. To learn more about this important TASFAA activity or to volunteer, contact me at abvaldez@panam.edu. You can access current versions of the book and the accompanying presentation at www.tasfaa.org in our “Resources” section.