Dive Temporary:
- The highschool class of 2026 has accomplished a collective 1.6 million federal student aid applications for larger training for the 2026-27 college 12 months as of Jan. 23, or about 52% greater than the category of 2025 by the identical date, in keeping with a tracker from the Nationwide Faculty Attainment Community.
- The U.S. Division of Schooling, which oversees the FAFSA course of, stories that it has processed a complete of seven.6 million functions — together with for the highschool class of 2026 and all different filers — for federal scholar support for the subsequent college 12 months as of Jan. 30.
- The Schooling Division, in a Dec. 18 assertion, touted a number of elements for the elevated exercise, together with an early launch date for the FAFSA kind, a streamlined person expertise, and expanded help for college students and households.
Dive Perception:
Within the December assertion, the Schooling Division celebrated the 5 millionth FAFSA submission for all filers — not simply the highschool class of 2026 — on Dec. 17, calling it a “historic milestone.”
U.S. Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon stated within the December assertion that finishing the FAFSA kind is a “vital first step” for postsecondary training journeys. “And simply two quick years in the past, not a single American scholar had accomplished the FAFSA kind by December seventeenth. Distinction that with at the moment, the place 5 million aspiring faculty college students haven’t solely began, however efficiently accomplished and submitted their FAFSA types,” McMahon stated.
The FAFSA milestone introduced below the Trump administration comes about two years after the Schooling Division, below the Biden administration, launched the FAFSA utility kind months after Oct. 1, the standard launch date. The Schooling Division had technical struggles because it tried to roll out a new, shorter and easier-to-use model on the path of Congress.
Amid these difficulties, the highschool class of 2024 accomplished 2.3 million FAFSA types by Dec. 27, 2024, a lower of practically 10% in comparison with the earlier college 12 months, in keeping with NCAN’s tracker.
Regardless of the highschool class of 2024’s struggles with that 12 months’s FAFSA kind, a September 2025 report from NCAN discovered that fast larger training fall enrollment remained secure throughout practically all highschool traits for the highschool, akin to poverty, revenue and minority ranges and urbanicity, for the highschool graduating courses of 2023 and 2024.
Earlier completion and processing dates for the FAFSA help schools in figuring out monetary support packages for candidates, in addition to give candidates a greater understanding of their monetary support eligibility when making selections about the place they need to enroll. The FAFSA may help decide eligibility for Pell grants, federal work-study and federal loans.
The price of attending faculty is a prime consider folks’s resolution to pursue a postsecondary degree, in keeping with a Could 2025 article in The Journal of the Nationwide Affiliation of State Boards of Schooling. The typical value of school in the US is $38,270 per scholar per 12 months, together with books, provides and each day dwelling bills, in keeping with the Schooling Knowledge Initiative. In-state tuition solely averages to $9,750 and out-of-state tuition is about $28,386.
A number of states have made filling out the FAFSA a requirement for highschool seniors. In these states — like Texas, Alabama and Illinois — there have been will increase within the charges of FAFSA completions, in keeping with NCAN.
As of Jan. 23, Illinois’s class of 2026 had a 52% FAFSA completion price — the best within the nation, in keeping with NCAN. The opposite states with prime completion charges embrace Texas with 49% and New Jersey with 48%.
