Iowa colleges see lower federal student aid completion rates • Iowa C…

As Iowa colleges and universities receive the last of the federal student aid applications for the upcoming school year, financial aid officials are seeing fewer students submit their documents and changes in how much those who do file receive.

Iowa’s completion rate of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is on par with the national average, but for individual colleges those numbers are more extreme.

Almost 1.9 million students had filed the FAFSA by June 21, according to the National College Attainment Network, or just over 45% of the total high school class of 2024. This is an 11.8% drop from 2023.

Iowa is firmly in the middle of the pack for rates of FAFSA completion, according to the network, with 43.8% of high school seniors having submitted the form by June 21. The rate of completion dropped by 11.7% from last year, or from 18,493 submitted applications to 16,039.