How to Keep Student Support Systems Afloat During the Holiday Break

As campuses wind down for the holidays, students may be heading home, but many faculty and staff still have plenty left on their plates. December is crunch time across higher education: final grades, year-end reports, budget work, January term planning, financial aid updates, spring enrollment pushes, and a dozen other deadlines all converge at the same time. With to-do lists stacking up and offices preparing for reduced hours or short closures, it’s easy to overlook what students may need during the semester break.

But for many students, going home is neither restful nor stress-free. Break can mean returning to unstable home environments, losing access to campus support systems, or addressing academic and financial concerns without guidance. The support students receive—or don’t receive—during this period can significantly shape their well-being, their academic confidence, and ultimately their decision to return in the spring.

To help institutions anticipate and meet those needs even while offices are closed, we’ve created a focused checklist that institutions can use to help support students over the holiday break.

1. Support Student Mental Health Needs

For many students, winter break is far from restful. As academic pressure, family concerns, and financial stress all peak around the holidays, students often experience heightened emotional strain. Leaving campus means distancing themselves from support systems, routines, and mental health services they rely on during the semester. While it may be unrealistic to offer students full access to counseling during the break, there are many things institutions can do to support students who may be struggling.

The Holiday Break Mental Health Communications Checklist 

• Promote crisis hotlines, telehealth resources, and safety contacts.
• Promote these resources prominently in your student portal.
• Send out automated reminder emails throughout the break.
• Create specific messaging for at-risk students.
• Automate key mental health communications.
• Create and send out a list of activities students can engage in over break to support their mental health.
• Auto-send mid-break check-in messages from advising or student success teams.
• Provide a What to Do If You’re Struggling guide with clear, step-by-step instructions. 

2. Provide Easy-to-Access Financial Aid Information

Winter break is when students and families finally have time to review finances, file FAFSA forms, and understand what documents or deadlines are upcoming or overdue. Unfortunately—because financial aid staff are busy with year-end concerns—it’s also when many institutions’ financial aid pages get the least amount of attention.

Students trying to solve urgent questions about scholarship cutoffs, missing forms, or payment plans often hit dead ends at the exact moment staff are unavailable to help. This gap drives students to outside sources like Reddit or TikTok, where misinformation spreads quickly and creates more confusion.

The Holiday Break Financial Aid Checklist 

• Update financial aid pages to reflect accurate deadlines, closure dates, and required documents.
• Publish a “Winter Break Financial Aid FAQ” as a temporary pinned resource on the website.
• Ensure auto-reply messages include actionable next steps, not just “we’re closed.”
• Offer a downloadable or portal-based financial aid filing checklist.
• Send automated communications with important reminders and links to key resources. 

3. Leverage Chatbots to Keep Communications Open

During the winter break, students often have urgent questions about grades, academic standing, billing, class schedules, advising contacts, and spring registration—among other things! But since most offices are unstaffed or understaffed, students frequently run into dead ends: full voicemail boxes, outdated webpages, or confusing navigation that makes it hard to find answers.

This is exactly when a chatbot becomes a critical extension of student support. A well-trained, accurate, and easy-to-use chatbot can resolve common questions instantly, reduce student anxiety, and significantly cut down the backlog awaiting staff when they return in January.

The Holiday Break Chatbot Checklist 

• Update chatbot content before the holiday to ensure answers reflect current deadlines, policies, and closure dates.
• Program the chatbot to surface the most-searched semester break questions (How do I see my grades?, How do I declare my major?, When is my bill due?, etc.).
• Add break-specific prompts, such as What do I do if your office is closed? or What do I need to do before the spring semester starts?
• Integrate the chatbot into key pages where students are likely to seek help. 

A Bit of Pre-Break Prep Can Go a Long Way

By anticipating student needs over the holiday break and doing some front-end work to strengthen communications and digital strategies, institutions can support students more effectively. These actions help students navigate the break with clarity, return to campus with confidence, and ensure that staff have a smoother, more manageable start to the spring term.