UNC Student to be on Panel to Improve FAFSA
November 30, 2017
University of Northern Colorado senior Kevion Ellis has been selected to serve on a panel Dec. 7 in Washington, D.C., to discuss and offer recommendations to make it easier for students to apply for federal student aid.
Kevion Ellis
The panel meets amid a Congressional push for simplifying the application process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Ellis, who serves as UNC’s Student Senate president, also has worked as a peer counselor in the university’s financial aid office since his sophomore year. He plans to share his experience, both as a student who himself has been through the application process and as someone who advises his peers.
“Through my training, I became very experienced with how to navigate the application,” Ellis said in an online article posted by the panel’s sponsor, Young Invincibles, a student-founded organization whose supporters include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“However, every day I work with students who aren’t as knowledgeable with FAFSA as I have come to be. Working with these students, I see the obstacles that deter them and their families from completing the application, like understanding questions on family income and providing additional documentation. These barriers can prevent students from filling out the FAFSA and ultimately from obtaining necessary financial aid for their education.”
