Five Questions with Innovative Leaders
A Series by Dr. Yoon S. Choi, CEO
Featuring Aaron Lemon-Strauss, Executive Director of FAFSA Program, US Department of Education
One of the best parts of leading a national non-profit is getting to collaborate with brilliant leaders. To share their insights and experience, I’m excited to continue my Q&A series on LinkedIn: Five Questions With Innovative Leaders. My goal is to shine a spotlight on impactful and innovative leaders who are improving educational outcomes, breaking down barriers, and supporting students and families. It’s an honor to feature Aaron Lemon-Strauss, who is a CollegeSpring board member and whose insight and leadership has been instrumental to our organization’s strategy and success.
1. Tell me a bit about your background and how you came to be involved in education?
My first job after college was running an off-Broadway theater company, which was a lot of fun, if not quite sustainable. I started doing SAT prep on the side and quickly realized I was more motivated by supporting students reaching college than by Brechtian subversion of bourgeois values (but no shade if you’re in it for the Brecht). I moved into management positions and liked seeing how helping a teacher improve her craft resulted in more students reaching their educational goals. As I transitioned towards product development that connection was still there –when we improved the user-interface of our product, more students completed their assignments, or improved their scores, or got help with a problem they were stuck on. When you have clear data on the connection between leading indicators (did the student do this homework assignment?) and lagging indicators (did she matriculate to a well-matched college?) you feel great about your work and the prioritization decisions you’re making.
2. You are a CollegeSpring board member, and a long-time friend of the organization. What was it about our organization that drew you to it and continues to keep you involved?
My work is building digital tools that support student achievement. And yet we know that if you just release a digital tool it will have an unequal impact as those with resources adopt it and benefit from it the most. As we were building Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy (the best way to prepare for the SAT that just happens to be free) we knew we needed partners who would support student success on the SAT. We met with a large number of nonprofits, all of which are doing great work. I was most impressed with CollegeSpring’s model, with its focus on building educator capacity in schools and districts with the greatest need. My experience is that if you want to propel student success you need to do it in schools. CollegeSpring understands that and meets students and teachers where they are with high-quality resources.
3. You recently joined the U.S. Deptartment of Education to improve FAFSA for millions of students. Can you share a bit about what problems you were trying to fix, and how you solved them?
A group of us joined in June to support the Department’s release of the 2025-26 FAFSA form after the challenges of the previous year. The team at Federal Student Aid had all the right people and expertise. Our job was about clearing some obstacles in their path so they could do their best work. The Department decided there would be value in having a permanent Executive Director for the FAFSA and I started in that role this week.
4. In your new role at FAFSA, what are your priorities and goals for continuing to improve FAFSA?
Seventeen million students complete the FAFSA each year. That means that a 0.1% improvement in the completion rate translates to over 10,000 additional students who can access the financial aid they may need to enroll in college. We know the data on the impact of a college degree for reaching the middle class and gaining security for your family. We can achieve that 0.1% improvement (or greater!) with big moves like overhauling the contributor flow or small adjustments like adding some help text to a question with tricky wording. The opportunity is enormous. The FAFSA works pretty well for a majority of students. The integrations with the IRS and Social Security Administration mean that the form can be completed in minutes if all of the data matches up with you and your parents/spouse/contributors. Our challenge is in making the FAFSA work well for everyone. Students with non-traditional families. Mixed status families. Military families. There are exceptions and edge cases for whom the form is too hard to navigate. We also have the opportunity to do better supporting the caring professionals in higher education and the nonprofit world who work every day with students and families and can be a powerful force to support greater FAFSA completion rates.
5. You’ve worked in education for the private, nonprofit, and now government sector. What are some learnings that you’d want to share with someone else who might be interested in a similar trajectory?
Regardless of the operating structure of the organization you work in, student success is what matters most. Each sector has forces that can lead you astray; generally the enemy is short-termism. Short-term profits, short-term politics, short-term virtue signaling. My experience is that everyone who works in education does it because they care about student achievement. They also know that long-term success for the organization comes through producing a track record of successful students. It’s what leads to renewed contracts, strong word of mouth, increased funding, or whatever else you need to keep going. Figure out how to tie the work you want to do, and the investment you need to do that work, to student success.