Historical Winners - Gold Star Award

The Gold Star Award recognizes innovative ideas in the financial aid arena at any level, targeted toward any constituency. Up to three ideas are recognized each year. Below are some of the previously awarded projects.

2021 Gold Star Award Winner

West Governors UniversityWestern Governors University – Responsible Borrowing Initiatives

WGU's Responsible Borrowing Initiatives (RBI) have successfully lowered debt for students. Through a set of tools that provide students with a personalized look at their own debt outlook, RBI has empowered students to make data-driven decisions that substantially reduced student borrowing on both direct (tuition and fees) and indirect (living expenses) costs. In 2013, the year RBI launched, 65% of students accepted the lower loan levels recommended by their personalized loan calculator, with 3% borrowing even less than recommended and 10% declining loans altogether. That success has continued and has seen WGU's already-low borrowing and default rates fall dramatically-the most recent cohort default rate of 4.1% is less than half the national 9.7%, and debt at graduation among undergrads who borrow is only about $14,000, compared with about $30,000 nationally. With the launch of the Student Loan Scenario calculator in 2019, students know exactly what they need to do to successfully pay off their loans in a timely efficient manner. All these efforts-combined with low tuition to begin with and post-graduation salary outcomes that outpace the national average-bring success to students who can focus on the accomplishment of finishing a workforce-relevant degree rather than worry about the burden of loans it took them to achieve.

2020 Gold Star Award Winner

FAFSAA LogoFlorida Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (FASFAA) – Clock Hour Workshop

Project Objective: Clock Hour institutions are often left to their own devices when it comes to learning about how to administer financial aid. FASFAA has for many years conducted an annual clock-hour workshop focused on issues specific to financial aid at clock hour institutions and with clock hour programs. Their initiative  was to be recognized as a national leader in the education of clock hour financial aid administrators and to draw attendance from institutions nationwide as a way to supplement the overall budget for our association, and to provide well needed training.

Honorable Mention

University of South FloridaUniversity of South Florida - #bull2bullreduceyourdebtchallenge: A Peer-Based Financial Badging Program

Project Objective: The purpose of this program was to provide a comprehensive financial education co-curriculum badging program to help students build meaningful relationships with peer financial educators and measure financial competency through assessments and feedback. Students who take the challenge will be able to identify responsible borrowing techniques for their college expenses, create a basic money management plan, develop short-term and long-term personal financial goals, and identify the consequences of not making student loan payments. It is the goal of the program to improve students' financial self-efficacy so that they may feel empowered to make smart student loan borrowing decisions and prepare for a positive financial future.

2019 Gold Star Award Winner

2019 Gold Star Winners, SASFAA

Southern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (SASFAA) for its State President's Guidebook.

Project Objective: This project was developed to provide state presidents with the useful and consistent information needed to be successful as they move toward their role as the president of their state associations while serving as a voting member of the executive board at the regional level.

2018 Gold Star Award Winners

Gold Star Winners

University of Texas at Austin (eTASFA)

Project Objective: The project was developed to modernize the application portion of the process and allow students the ability to electronically report financial data through a self-serve web solution.

Gold Star Winners

CUNY Brooklyn College (Data-driven Financial Aid Cohort Advisement Model)

Project Objective: To better serve the financial aid needs of the students of CUNY Brooklyn College, the Financial Aid Office implemented a cohort advisement model to help our predominantly low/middle income, diverse and in many cases, first generation families to navigate what can at times be a complicated financial aid application process.

2017 Gold Star Award Winners

2017 Gold Star Award WinnersThe California Community College Chancellor's Office for "California Community Chancellor's Office Financial Literacy Initiative."

The project works on life skills students need to succeed through financial literacy knowledge, and financial wellness. The five-year plan included a multi-pronged approach, including partnering on a "train the trainer" curriculum.

California State University, Sacramento for "Financial Aid Meter for Students."

CSUS's Financial Aid Meter provides students and financial aid advisors a way to quickly determine how many semesters of eligibility the student has remaining in financial aid programs, so they can match their academic plan to their remaining financial aid eligibility.

2016 Gold Star Award Winner

MSU Award WinnersMichigan State University, "Utilizing Learning Management Systems for Financial Aid Training"

This online training program offers many benefits including reaching learners from various geographical locations, allowing self-paced learning, and the ability to review training materials at any time.

2014-15 Gold Star Award Winners

In 2015, there was one Gold Star Award winner, and two honorable mentions:

University of Oklahoma Gold Star winners

Winner: The Nine Things Every College Student Should Know About Money

The winner of this year's Gold Star Award was the University of Oklahoma for "The Nine Things Every College Student Should Know About Money," a course created to provide students with an understanding of personal finance and how financial decisions will impact their lives going forward.

Honorable Mention: nextPAGEPASFAA accepts Gold Star Honorable Mention

The first Gold Star Honorable Mention was presented to PASFAA – the Pennsylvania Association – for nextPAGE, PASFAA's Advancement of Generations Exchange. Created to empower the next generation of financial aid administrators, the program's four components – training, mentoring, networking, and job shadowing – give participants the tools they need to grow and succeed in financial aid.

Honorable Mention: California Financial Aid Leadership Institute

UC Santa Barbara accepts Gold Star Honorable MentionThe second Gold Star Honorable Mention went to the University of California, Santa Barbara for its Financial Aid Leadership Institute, which was created to identify up and coming financial aid professionals and prepares them to become the next high level financial aid administrators at UC.

2013-14 Gold Star Award Winners

In 2014, there were two Gold Star Award winners, and one honorable mention:

FAChat
The first award winner was FAChat, put together by three individuals from three institutions; Justin Chase Brown, formerly of University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and currently Associate Director at the University of Missouri, Melissa Haberman, Compliance and Training Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Colleges, and Jayme Jarrett, Financial Aid Counselor at Ohio Northern University. It is a moderated Twitter chat for financial aid professionals.

Financial Aid 101
The second award winner was Financial Aid 101, an email series created by the University of Denver. After realizing that most families were overwhelmed with the financial aid process, Lisa Westendorf, Assistant Director of Communication in Financial Aid, conceptualized and implemented a customized email series for the school's incoming students in fall of 2013.

Financial Aid Video Library 
An honorable mention was awarded to Michigan State University for creating a video library as a self-help tool for students and parents that can be accessed 24/7. Topics range from loan acceptance processes to explaining the effects of dropping courses in regards to modular withdrawals.

2012-13 Gold Star Award Winner

The 2013 Gold Star award went to "Clock Hour Group and Program," submitted by the Florida Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. This initiative targeted the training needs of aid administrators serving in clock-hour settings by providing specific training and networking opportunities to this segment of the aid-practitioner community.

2011-12 Gold Star Award Winners

Award: "Seven Easy Steps to the FAFSA: A Student's Guide to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and IRS Data Retrieval Tool Tutorial," submitted by the University of California, Santa Barbara 

The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships at the University of California, Santa Barbara developed an online FAFSA tutorial to simplify the FAFSA application process for students and reduce the overall workload at the university's financial aid office.

Award: "NCASFAA's Veterans' Task Force and Veteran Re-entry and PTSD Awareness," submitted by the North Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators 

The North Carolina Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NCASFAA) created the NCASFAA Veteran's Task Force to keep the members aware of any re-entry issues veterans might face entering the higher education environment.

Award: "Associations Collaborating for Advocacy on the Hill" submitted jointly by EASFAA, DE-DC-MD ASFAA, and SASFAA 

The goal of the initiative was to establish relationships with legislative aides from the Senate and House to conduct advocacy efforts highlighted in our "Briefing Document" on several key topics affecting Title IV Financial Aid, aid to provide professional development to participants.

Honorable Mention: "Michigan Legislative Training and Capitol Visits" submitted by the Michigan Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators 

The goals of the project were to educate members of the Michigan Legislature about the financial aid process and to educate financial aid administrators about the legislative process and how to effectively advocate for financial aid support for students.

2010-11 Gold Star Award Winner

Award: "Clickers" Submitted By Vernon College 

The main goal of the project was to transform instruction delivery method for financial aid presentations, by asking participants to answer multiple choice or true/false questions via an electronic clicker. As a result, the financial aid staff was trained on the use of the student response systems which are now used in all financial aid presentations.

Prior to the Gold Star Awards, NASFAA offered State Awards.

Past State Award Winners (PDF)

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