Dive Temporary: 

• Roughly 676,000 highschool seniors submitted a Free Utility for Federal Pupil Help by way of late January, fewer than half the quantity who had despatched within the kind by the identical time final 12 months, based on an evaluation from the Nationwide Faculty Attainment Community. 
• The decline comes throughout — and presumably due to — an uncommon 12 months for the FAFSA. The U.S. Division of Schooling launched the revamped kind almost three months later than regular, and glitches and technical errors have plagued its rollout.
• As of Jan. 26, highschool seniors had submitted 56.6% fewer FAFSA kinds in comparison with the 12 months earlier than. That drop is much more extreme for college kids from excessive faculties with predominantly low-income populations — they’ve seen a 65.2% year-over-year decline in FAFSA submissions. 

Dive Perception: 

The brand new FAFSA lowers the utmost variety of questions college students and households should reply from over 100 to a number of dozen. 

However the revamp got here at a price. Though the FAFSA is normally obtainable by Oct. 1, it took the Schooling Division till Dec. 30 to get the simplified kind out. 

Invoice DeBaun, NCAN’s senior director of knowledge and strategic initiatives, attributed the lower largely to the smaller window that college students have to finish the FAFSA this cycle. 

NCAN’s evaluation measured what number of highschool college students submitted the shape by Jan. 26 — simply 4 weeks into the cycle for the 2024-25 educational 12 months. At this level final 12 months, college students had been already about 17 weeks into the cycle, DeBaun mentioned. 

Nonetheless, DeBaun mentioned the highschool class of 2024 had a “sturdy efficiency” when evaluating the 2 cycles’ fourth weeks. 

The truth is, this 12 months’s class submitted about 3% extra purposes by way of late January in comparison with the quantity despatched over the past cycle’s fourth week. DeBaun mentioned he hopes these numbers develop at a quicker clip to shut the general hole. 

“The category of 2023 had greater than a three-month headstart on them,” DeBaun mentioned. “We will play catch up all spring.”

The December rollout isn’t the one delay upsetting this monetary support cycle. Final month, the Schooling Division mentioned it wouldn’t submit FAFSA applicant knowledge to high schools and state businesses till March, sharply curbing the period of time they must make monetary support presents. 

NCAN and different greater schooling organizations have thus referred to as on schools to contemplate pushing again their conventional Might 1 pupil dedication deadline. Some schools have already modified these dates, together with Oregon State College, Kalamazoo Faculty and Lewis & Clark Faculty. 

College students can even seemingly want steerage on finishing the shape, even with the simplification. 

“It’s a query of getting extra arms on the market to help college students and households with this course of, to reply their questions,” DeBaun mentioned. That features reassuring them that they aren’t doing something incorrect after they run into technical glitches, he added. 

Sure college students haven’t been capable of fill out the FAFSA on account of points with the brand new kind’s rollout. As an illustration, college students whose mother and father don’t have Social Safety numbers can’t submit the shape but, a difficulty that’s harming immigrant households. 

A senior Schooling Division official mentioned Monday that the company is engaged on the problem however didn’t present a timeline for a repair. On the similar time, the division introduced plans to ship federal personnel to sure schools to supply technical help as they course of monetary support packages utilizing the brand new kind.