FAFSA Completion Rates Vary by State
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29 Jul 2013
While completion rates for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) vary tremendously by school, they vary by state as well. Using newly released data from the U.S. Department of Education, we created the map below to show state-level FAFSA completion rates.
Nationwide, 55 percent of high school graduates completed their FAFSA in 2012.* Twenty-four states had statewide completion rates under 50 percent and four states—Arizona, Utah, Alaska, and Vermont—had statewide completion rates under 40 percent. Twenty-five states fell somewhere in the middle and had between 50 and 59 percent of their graduates complete the form. And on the other end of spectrum, Massachusetts and Rhode Island had the highest completion rates. In those states, more than six out of 10 high school graduates completed a FAFSA.
Importantly, the data also allow us to look at the number and percentage of students who start filling out the form but, for one reason or another, fail to complete it. In 2012, almost 4 percent of high school graduates, or 135,772 students, started their FAFSA but did not complete it. In most states, this constitutes between 2 and 5 percent of students. However, two states, Nevada and California, post higher rates of discouraged students. In California,
