By Susan Snyder, Kristen A. Graham
The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS
Colleen McCaffrey, a senior at Northeast High in Philadelphia, spends much of her time trying to persuade her classmates to fill out federal college financial-aid forms.
It’s a tougher sell this year.
”The hardest thing is just getting to people,” said McCaffrey, who’s part of Peer Forward, a program that trains teenagers to help their peers prepare for college. “In the past, we had assemblies. We could go into homerooms and talk to people in person. You can’t do that this year.”
At Northeast, the city’s largest high school, about 46% of the 833 seniors have completed their Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms, known as FAFSA. That’s the highest rate of completion in the Philadelphia School District, said Venita DeLaRosa-Ortiz, a college and career coordinator at Northeast. But it’s also down from almost 60% this time last year.