California’s FAFSA applications drop nearly by half
This year’s FAFSA glitches are hitting students in California harder than in any other state, leading advocates to fear that university enrollment could plunge next fall.
Students often depend on financial aid, including federal Pell Grants and state Cal Grants, to attend college. But this year, the federal government’s effort to improve the cumbersome Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has led to glitches that are thwarting millions of students across the country from completing the form.
Students have just over a month to choose where they will attend college — and knowing what aid they will receive is a big factor in that decision.
It’s worst in California, where aid applications have dropped by nearly half compared to last year. One key reason is that the form prevents students who are citizens but whose parents lack a Social Security number from filling out the form. Students from states with fewer “mixed status” applicants don’t often run into that glitch.
“Policymakers, practitioners, and the public should be gravely concerned about the size of potential declines in fall enrollment,” said Bill DeBaun, senior director of the National College Attainment Network, which tracks FAFSA completions.
Roughly 130,000 fewer California high school students were able to fill out the FAFSA this year than last year — a 46% drop, DeBaun said.
Last year, more than 52% of California high school seniors completed the FAFSA by the end of March. This year, just 27.5% have done so — yet slightly better than this year’s national average of 26.9%. Across the country, FAFSA applications have fallen by 39.6%.
“We are concerned about the impact on enrollment,” said Shelveen Ratnam, a spokesperson for the California Student Aid Commission. “Without an understanding of their eligibility for financial aid, students and families may feel less confident confirming their enrollment.”
The student aid commission administers Cal Grants and uses the FAFSA to determine students’ eligibility for in-state aid. Amid the FAFSA crisis, the commission created a workaround with the University of California and California State University so that students can now use the Dream Act application — which is usually for undocumented students — in place of the FAFSA if they’ve been blocked from completing it. The filing deadline is May 2.
CSU leaders are especially concerned because they already lost nearly 28,000 students, 6.5% of enrollment, since the pandemic and are desperate to recover.
“With the biggest overhaul of the federal financial aid system in the last 40 years, this has been a year like no other,” said Hazel Kelly, a CSU spokesperson. Like most universities, it’s sending out financial aid award letters later than in the past.
California State University East Bay expects to begin sending letters in two weeks, said Sonia Jethani, the financial aid director. But she said statements of intent to register are down, and aid applications are even lower than during the pandemic.
The campus has already lost a quarter of its enrollment, and Jethani said she fears that the FAFSA problems could lead more students to “give up on submitting the application.”
San Francisco State has lost 1 in 5 students since the pandemic, and now FAFSA applications there are down 40%.
“These stats are obviously concerning,” said Kent Bravo, a spokesperson.
UC is facing similar concerns. “We know students need information about their potential financial aid to make their important college choice decision,” said Cruz Grimaldo, head of financial aid at UC Berkeley, where at least 60% of undergraduates receive financial aid.
Rather than skip college, Grimaldo suggests that students estimate the cost to attend using the Net Price Calculator that colleges are required to post.
Firm enrollment numbers won’t be known until fall, so UC officials hesitate to speculate.
“We believe it would be premature,” said Ryan King, a spokesperson.
In fact, enrollment at UC has increased annually for at least a decade, with one exception: a drop of 353 students — 0.1% — in 2022 during the pandemic. Enrollment across all 10 campuses has risen by an average of 5,687 students a year during 2013-23, to nearly 300,000.
And yet, there is concern. As FAFSA problems snowballed in February, UC and CSU each extended the deadline to May 15, for students to submit statements of intent to register.
More than 7 million FAFSAs had been successfully submitted across the country, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Tuesday.
Yet errors persist, such as the glitch that bars “mixed-immigration-status” students from completing the form.
Some errors are just mysterious. Kale’ia Ketcham of Hawaii, who wants to attend a California college next fall, said she has no idea why her FAFSA application showed repeated errors. It wasn’t until she recently received emails from San Jose State University and San Diego State University that she knew it had succeeded. She’s still waiting to hear from her top choice, St. Mary’s College in Moraga, where she has committed without knowing the size of her Pell Grant.
“It’s been very nerve-racking,” said Ketcham, whose mother is a single parent with a part-time job. “It’ll be devastating if the FAFSA comes back and it’s not what I anticipated.”
In a twist, one college that has been devastated by enrollment loss could find itself benefiting from the FAFSA uncertainty.
City College of San Francisco’s Free City program lets city residents attend for free.
As a result, students are “more likely to turn to City College,” said Alan Wong, president of the school’s Board of Trustees. “This FAFSA debacle will likely provide an influx of students left in the dark and concerned about their college tuition.”