SOS on SES: Capturing Student Socioeconomic Status PostFAFSA Revision

Session Abstract: Now that FAFSA’s EFC value has been replaced this year with the Student Aid Index (SAI), institutions are thinking critically about alternative measures to consistently compare SES of their students over time. We present this discovery and development process as done at a public four-year institution, and discuss where we went looking, the challenges with the measures already constructed, and the background construction of an SES indicator based on American Community Survey data. We also demo how it has been surfaced in a select group of our data products and discuss tips for integration into interactive dashboards.

Keywords: socioeconomic status, SES indicators, American Community Survey