The number of students who filled out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid is now 2.5 percent behind the 2022–23 cycle, an Education Department spokesperson said during a press call Wednesday.
That constitutes significant progress from earlier this spring, when the completion rate lagged by over 30 percent after the bungled rollout of the new federal aid form threw the financial aid process into chaos for colleges and families. But the education department’s numbers include both first-year and continuing college students; according to the National College Attainment Network, which has been tracking FAFSA completion since January, completion rates for the Class of 2028 are still down by 9.1 percent compared to last year.
That progress also comes many months after the application deadlines for most colleges and follows a summer of intense work by college access organizations and state agencies to boost completion rates, often using federal funds awarded for that purpose.
Jeremy Singer, the former College Board president who joined the Federal Student Aid office in June as temporary FAFSA czar, also laid out a plan for the gradual rollout of this year’s form; last month, the department pushed back the full launch date from Oct. 1 to Dec. 1.
Singer said the first phase of the rollout will involve six nonprofit college access organizations as partners, which will hold in-person and virtual FAFSA help sessions starting early next month. He added that the beta version of the form will be made available to at least 600 students through the partner organizations and that details on further phases of the rollout—there are four altogether—will be released by the end of this month.
