The report focuses on the new Student Success Through Applied Research (SSTAR) Lab within the university’s Office of Student Financial Aid. The lab is being led by the School of Education’s Nicholas Hillman, who says he is not aware of any other lab in the nation that is developing such a partnership with a financial aid unit.

Hillman is an associate professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a faculty affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE).

SSTAR’s mission is to use applied academic research to guide, support, and partner with practitioners whose work aims to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for current and future college students.

UW–Madison has already begun to implement data from SSTAR to develop Bucky’s Tuition Promise scholarship, which was enacted this fall for about 800 in-state students with low income families. This scholarship benefits nearly one in five of UW–Madison’s incoming, in-state students.

SSTAR will focus on underserved students, as Education Dive notes that 661,000 low-income high school graduates didn’t complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA). Experts cite doubts about eligibility and lack of information as some of the reasons students neglected to complete the FASFA.

Read the entire Education Dive article, headlined “UW–Madison brings student outcomes data crunchers into aid office,” on this web page.