Why Students Didn’t Complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)

Among fall 2009 ninth-graders who graduated from high school, approximately 65 percent of students or their parents reported completing a FAFSA, and 24 percent did not. The National Center for Education Statistics released a new Statistics in Brief today, December 19, entitled Why Didn’t Students Complete a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)? A Detailed Look.  This report builds on prior NCES publications to provide an updated and detailed look at why students, or their parents, reported that they did not complete the FAFSA. Among fall 2009 ninth-graders who graduated from high school and reported, or their parents reported, not completing a FAFSA, 33 percent thought they or their family could afford school or college without financial aid; 32 percent thought they or their family may be ineligible or may not qualify for financial aid; 28 percent did not want to take on debt; 23 percent did not have enough information about how to complete a FAFSA; 22 percent did not plan to continue education after high school; 15 percent did not know they could complete a FAFSA; and 9 percent thought the FAFSA forms were too much work or too time-consuming. This report uses data from the 2013 Update of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), a nationally representative study of a cohort of students who were ninth-graders in fall 2009. HSLS:09 focuses on understanding students’ trajectories from the beginning of high school into higher education and the workforce.