Many Louisiana students are missing out on financial aid for college due to incomplete Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms, a national trend exacerbated last year by glitches in the application’s rollout. Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistant Ebony Holmes says some challenges led to a decline in FAFSA submissions.
“They totally revamped the FAFSA to make it easier. Unfortunately, that revamp came with a lot of technical issues.”
Holmes says LOSFA has implemented strategies to reverse the decline, including FAFSA completion events, digital media campaigns, and one-on-one troubleshooting sessions. Programs like “FAFSA Frenzy” and “FAFSA Fridays” aim to simplify the process and address errors.
“We work a lot with our high schools where the counselors have us come out and so we’re doing FAFSA completion events there. This week we have over 15 events across the state.”
Despite the issues, Louisiana maintains a higher-than-average FAFSA completion rate of 62.9%, partly due to its current policy requiring FAFSA completion for graduation, though this will end in 2025.
“Our completion rate for 2024 was above the national average. For the past few years, we typically do complete above the national average.”
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