This is the FAFSA debacle’s fallout

This is Erica Meltzer and Kalyn Belsha from Chalkbeat’s national desk. We’ve told you a lot about the troubles with this year’s FAFSA. Now we have data showing how many fewer students completed the federal financial aid form that makes college feasible for millions of students. Read on for that, plus insight into how last year’s affirmative action ruling changed how students approach race in their college essays.

The big story

The 2023-24 FAFSA cycle has reached its merciful end. How bad was the damage? New data from the National College Attainment Network shows an 11.6% decline in students completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Nationally, fewer than half of graduating high school seniors filled out the form, and in 13 states, fewer than 40% did.

That matters because completing the FAFSA is a key indicator of whether students enroll in college. Many advocates fear that students who don’t know how much assistance they qualify for will simply skip college and miss out on the potential for higher-paying jobs.

Some states did better than others. But even Tennessee, which led the nation with 58.5% of students completing the FAFSA, saw a 10.8% decline from last year. Indiana had the smallest decline, less than 1%, but still saw fewer than half of students complete the form, according to NCAN.

That’s a poor showing for a simplified form that was supposed to make it easier for students to claim the financial aid for which they were eligible. Students who were able to use the form often did find it easier, but high school counselors and college financial aid administrators reported some students, especially those with undocumented parents, faced ongoing problems that lasted into June.

So what now? Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has promised that the 2024-25 FAFSA will be ready by Oct. 1, giving students and counselors far more time to fill out the form and giving colleges more time to prepare aid offers. Congressional Republicans introduced legislation this week that would require the U.S. Department of Education to meet that deadline. Democrats said that requirement needs to come with more resources or technical support.

Earlier this summer, a coalition of college access organizations and higher education officials also called for the department to open the FAFSA on Oct. 1. But they stressed that the form has to work consistently for everyone and provide timely processing and the ability for students to make corrections, all problems with this year’s form.

Read the full story and look up your state’s completion rate here.

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Spotlight on: Race and college essays

It’s been just over a year since the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could no longer explicitly consider a student’s race as part of their admissions process. But the justices did leave open the possibility for students to talk about their racial identities in their essays — something the Biden administration urged students not to shy away from.

So how has the ruling affected how students write about themselves and what they choose to present to admissions officers?

Data recently released by Common App, which many students use to apply to college, provides some clues. Researchers found that during the 2023-24 application cycle, students wrote about their racial or ethnic identity in their personal essays at about the same rate as in recent past years — though there was a notable uptick among Native American and Alaska Native students.

Still, some students say the ruling did change their approach.

A first-generation Mexican American student, for example, recently told The Hechinger Report that she had wanted to write about how she’d sacrificed her Latino culture and identity to pursue her education, but the ruling pushed her to focus instead on her experience with poverty.

Meanwhile, a biracial student who initially wrote about his love for video games told the Associated Press that after the ruling came down he felt more pressure to write about his race. He ended up focusing on his experiences in a leadership group for young Black men.?

“It felt true to myself,” he said. But “it wasn’t the truth that I necessarily wanted to share.”

Local stories to watch

• Colorado schools will get $11 million for vaping education and prevention from the state’s settlement with the e-cigarette maker Juul. Nearly every state has settled a lawsuit with Juul in recent years over claims the company aggressively marketed its products to teens and downplayed the health risks of vaping. In Colorado, much of the rest of the nearly $32 million settlement will go toward improving children’s mental health.
• In New Jersey, 60,000 additional kids will qualify for free and reduced-price school meals this year, thanks to a new state law. That represents a 13% increase, after lawmakers raised the limit on household incomes that qualify. The move is meant to help families struggling after the end of pandemic-era aid, but falls short of advocates’ goal to provide free school meals to all kids.