By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives
Reading time: 5 min.
Two years ago, almost to the day, we began seeing disastrous, COVID-impacted FAFSA completion outcomes nationally. So, the recent fluttering of hope welling deep within a data visualization feels strange and unfamiliar. Still, with FAFSA completions up
2.9% nationally through March 11 and the high school class of 2022 making daylight between itself and the class of 2021, there’s cause for cautious optimism.
The Form Your Future FAFSA Tracker shows that about 48,000 more seniors have completed through March 11 this year than did through the same date last year. That translates to an estimated national
FAFSA completion rate of about 42.1%, 1.2 percentage points greater than last year at the same point, but 2.1 percentage points behind the class of 2020.
The chart below shows how the current FAFSA cycle for high school seniors faltered to start, climbed through early December, stalled for two months, and then started rising again.
Public high schools serving substantial populations of students from low-income backgrounds (+7.9%) and students of color (+7.3%) are gaining FAFSA completions at a rate that’s about three times the national average.
By high school locale, all categories (city, suburban, town, rural) are up over last year, but suburban public high schools have the smallest gains. This is largely because their decreases last year were also the smallest, so the other locales have more
room for a bounceback.
There are a few big stories in this FAFSA completion cycle.
First, Texas and Alabama are in year one of implementing their universal FAFSA policies, and this seems to be resulting in big gains for both states. Texas’ year-over-year gains are +26.6%, or almost
41,000 FAFSA completions, and a 50.9% FAFSA completion rate. These gains see Texas as the runaway leader of the FAFSA Tracker leaderboard for relative improvement, and Texas is also in the top five states by percentage of seniors completing.
A percentage jump this big hasn’t occurred for a state since the first year of Louisiana’s universal FAFSA implementation for the class of 2018.
Alabama is no slouch either and is experiencing 17% year-over-year change, which puts the state in second place by that metric.
The next big story is the extent to which California’s priority financial aid deadline reshaped this FAFSA completion cycle nationally. Through Jan. 21, as the tweet below describes, California’s substantial FAFSA completion declines (-5% year-over-year,
-7,621) nearly canceled out the gains of every non-Texas state.
TX's universal FAFSA policy is driving big jumps in completion (+22.4% Y/Y, +29,887 FAFSAs)
But CA's *declines* are substantial (-5.0%, -7,621 FAFSAs)
CA nearly cancels out the gains from the other 18 states who are up year-over-year
(+7,775 FAFSAs total)
From that point on, California’s class of 2022 FAFSA completion trajectory was, to use a technical term, bonkers. By March 11, California was up 8,911 FAFSA completions this year, representing a 3.7% increase.
In the five-year history of the FAFSA Tracker, there has only ever been one other rise or fall after Jan. 1 as steep as what California saw in this seven-week period. It was after March 12, 2020, when the bottom fell out of FAFSA completions as COVID-19
shut the world down.
The above represents good news, relatively speaking, compared to last year. Keep in mind, the class of 2021 saw a 4.2% FAFSA completion decrease by about June 30, a year after a 3.7% decrease for the class of 2020 by about June 30. The year-over-year
comparison looks so good this year because last year was so bad.
So how are we doing in absolute terms, the percentage of high school seniors completing?
The chart below shows just the smidge of daylight emerging between the class of 2022 (violet) and the class of 2021 (orange). The class of 2022’s FAFSA completion rate is 42.1% through March 11, compared to 40.9% for last year’s class. Through about the
same date, the class of 2020 was at about 44.2% two years ago.
The calendar is now entering the period where FAFSA completion plummeted for the class of 2020. If the class of 2022 can keep up its same momentum, it is possible (though I’m still not sure probable) that the year’s seniors could get back to the class
of 2020’s completion rate or even exceed it. The class of 2019, the last pre-pandemic graduating class, which finished at 54.1% by about June 30, is a laudable target but probably a difficult one to reach. We should, to be clear, still try!
Although life is surely not back to its pre-pandemic “normal,” in-person instruction has largely resumed and with it a semblance of normalcy. Last year’s disruption and virtual instruction were the most frequently cited reason for FAFSA completion declines.
That partially carries over into this year; class of 2022 seniors have almost certainly missed out on some aspects of postsecondary advising over the past two years. We should expect that to have a downward effect on FAFSA completion and college-going,
even if it’s difficult to measure.
Beyond that, though, there’s a new downward pressure that did not exist last year; the economy is running particularly hot right now, especially on wages for entry-level workers. FAFSA completion and postsecondary enrollment tend to run countercyclical
to the health of the economy, and those wages will likely attract students on the margin away from college and toward the workforce.
Having passed most states' priority deadlines for financial aid, there are reasons to be upbeat about FAFSA completion and the class of 2022’s postsecondary enrollment prospects. As the cycle continues to unfold, NCAN will keep monitoring and publishing
the data on a weekly basis via the Form Your Future FAFSA Tracker.
Have questions, comments, or concerns? Contact Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives, at debaunb@ncan.org.
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