Memorable moments of a student’s high school graduation often include walking across a stage to accept a diploma and celebrating with family at a graduation party.
In a growing number of states, however, students must first fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, before getting to that moment.
The FAFSA is required for a student to be eligible for federal student loans, grants or federal work-study, and often to qualify for state and institutional scholarships. To boost FAFSA completion rates and encourage college enrollment, the following states currently require all public high school seniors to submit the FAFSA in order to graduate, according to the National College Attainment Network:
— California
— Louisiana
— Texas
— Illinois
— Alabama
— New Hampshire
This requirement will also be new for high school graduates in Connecticut, Indiana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma in the 2024-2025 academic year, according to NCAN, a nonprofit organization that advocates for educational equity. Kansas also announced a FAFSA requirement that will go into effect in the 2027-2028 school year.
[Read: FAFSA Deadlines You Should Know.]
Some states are making it a priority rather than a requirement. Colorado, for instance, established a grant program for school districts to opt into as a way to promote FAFSA completion. Meanwhile, Maryland strongly encourages completion by assisting students with the process rather than introducing a statewide requirement.
Despite being the first state to implement a FAFSA graduation requirement, Louisiana will drop its mandate starting with the high school class of 2025.
How Does the FAFSA Completion Requirement Work?
The requirement may look different in each state or district. Families typically receive information about the mandate at the start of the school year and may be contacted or reminded closer to graduation if the FAFSA isn’t filed, experts say.
A student may opt out of the requirement for any reason, such as plans to serve in the military, a job lined up after graduation or parents who refuse to provide necessary financial information.
“They are not literally forcing every single student to complete a FAFSA in order to graduate,” says Shannon Vasconcelos, senior director of college finance for Bright Horizons College Coach, an education consulting company. “You just have to file an extra piece of paperwork to say that you do not intend to file the FAFSA. …. It’s a slight administrative burden for those who don’t want to do it. But I always advocate for students and families to make informed decisions, and completing a FAFSA is a way to inform families about the affordability of college.”
For undocumented students or students with undocumented parents who are ineligible to complete the FAFSA, some states offer an alternative financial form to fulfill the requirement. For instance, students in California can file either the FAFSA or the California Dream Act Application.
[READ: What’s New on the 2024-2025 FAFSA]
Implications of the FAFSA Completion Requirement
Completing the FAFSA can help students make more informed decisions about whether and where they will attend college. According to NCAN, as of May 10, 2024, the FAFSA completion rate nationwide for the Class of 2024 was 40.2%, a 17.2% decline from the Class of 2023.
It’s difficult to understand the effect of mandating FAFSA completion on college enrollment, as many states implemented the policies either right before or during the coronavirus pandemic, says Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives at NCAN.
“We would love to see the empirical evidence about how and whether these policies actually lead to increases in postsecondary enrollment,” he says. “Untangling the enrollment effects of the pandemic with the enrollment effects of universal FAFSA policies is pretty difficult from a research standpoint.”
[Read: How to Pay for College Using These Overlooked Strategies.]
However, FAFSA completion mandates have caused more people to pay attention to the college financial aid process, experts say. As tuition costs have risen rapidly over the years, families may be unaware that the tuition sticker price they see on a college’s website is rarely the amount an average student pays. Each year, billions of dollars in federal Pell Grants go unclaimed because students who would have qualified did not file the FAFSA, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
“The cost of college is extremely untransparent,” Vasconcelos says. “And the way to get the transparency is completing the FAFSA.”
However, FAFSA completion policies matter, DeBaun says.
“When states go to implement, they should also make sure that they are providing resources, training and ideally funding to support activities at the district and school level,” he says. “If we are going to say that this is now something that districts and schools need to focus more on, states should also support them in doing that.”
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States Requiring FAFSA for High School Seniors originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 05/22/24: This article was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information
