By The Herald Editorial Board
If you kick yourself for leaving a $1-off coupon at home when you go to the grocery store, imagine how you might feel about leaving more than $5,000 on the table for a young adult in your family with plans to go to college.
On average, the federal Pell grant awarded to Washington families — for those who completed the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) — was $5,122 for 2023 high school graduates; yet eligible families in the state left about $65. 2 million in Pell grants — not student loans that have to be paid back with interest, but grants — unused by failing to complete the FAFSA, according to the National College Attainment Network. Nationwide, about $4 billion was left on the table by families who would have qualified for the aid.
Only about 52.8 percent of families in this state completed the FAFSA for the 2023-24 school year, the fourth-lowest completion rate in the nation. Yet that was an improvement over the 41.7 percent who completed the application the year before.
Not that completing a FAFSA has always been simple nor trouble free. The U.S. Department of Education, responsible for administering the application and the aid, attempted to simplify the process last year after years of complaints, but the reforms were plagued by technical glitches and delays. Those problems delayed award letters to applicants for the 2024-25 academic year, which complicated decisions by some students regarding which college or program they would attend.
With fixes in place, the Education Department rolled out the 2025-26 FAFSA incrementally this year. Rather than releasing the application on Oct. 1 as usual, the FAFSA got a slow roll-out, but is only now available for all students. The department says it will have the 2026-27 application ready next Oct. 1.
Yet, some states, eager to get financial aid to students most in need are bypassing the FAFSA for some prospective students. The Washington State Achievement Council announced that beginning in 2026, the state will guarantee free tuition to public colleges and universities for students whose families are eligible for SNAP, the federal supplemental nutrition assistance program, once referred to as food stamps. Eligible students will be automatically notified of the award, to encourage those students to apply for college.
“We don’t know how many students we lost because of excessively complex processes they had to go through,” Michael Meotti, executive director for the council told The Hechinger Report. “We wanted to tell students, ‘We still want you to fill out FAFSA, but we promise you won’t be getting a bill for tuition.’”
But for students whose families aren’t eligible for SNAP, completing the FAFSA application remains imperative. The WA Grant, provides financial aid for students considering college, career training or apprenticeships. For the current school year, a Washington state family of four making $78,500 a year would qualify for free tuition; even a family with annual income of $120,000 would still qualify for some assistance.
The effort to complete the financial aid process becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the National College Attainment Network reports; high school students who complete the FAFSA are 84 percent more likely to enroll in college for the coming academic year.
As important as it is for individual families to apply for and receive that financial aid, there’s a broader public interest as well in how that investment in financial aid benefits the state and the nation.
Washington state is fortunate to have a strong economy, ranking first in 10-year gross domestic product growth and ninth in job growth, according to a recent report by Washington Roundtable. The further good news is that job availability is projected to continue growing at nearly 12.8 percent between now and 2032, eclipsing the expected 2.8 percent pace of job growth nationally.
Yet, the Roundtable warns, the state isn’t on pace to meet that growth in jobs by providing prospective employees with the education and training necessary to perform those jobs.
About 3 in 4 of an estimated 1.5 million job openings in the next decade will require post-secondary credentials, including 45 percent of positions that will require at least a bachelor’s degree.
Over that period, the state is facing a shortfall for nearly 600,000 jobs needing credentialed workers, including some 301,000 positions that require a bachelor’s degree or higher; about 228,000 that require certifications, apprenticeships or other training credentials; and 67,000 requiring an associate’s degree. Among the fields that will be most in demand are health care, advanced computing and technology, education, clean energy and technology, construction and skilled trades and business and management.
“Add to that,” the report warns, “an oversupply of uncredentialed workers — those with a high school diploma or less — could economically sideline more than a quarter-million adults who will be competing for a smaller pool of opportunities, leaving them unable to access living-wage jobs.”
If families are leaving financial aid on the table, the state risks leaving well-paying jobs and a continued strong economy on the table, too.
FAFSA
To begin the application process go to fafsa.gov.
The process can take about an hour. You’ll need to set up a user name and password and have a parent or spouse contributor’s name, date of birth, Social Security number and email address, as well as income and asset information (if required.)
Families not eligible to complete a federal financial aid application because of their immigration status can instead apply for state aid through the Washington Application for State Financial Aid.
For more information from the Washington State Achievement Council on applying for federal and state financial aid, go to wsac.wa.gov/apply, where you can use a financial aid calculator to estimate your award.
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