In a troubling sign of the pandemic’s impact on students’ plans for higher education, a report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows less than half the state’s public high school seniors last year filled out federal paperwork for college financial aid.
Compared to the pre-pandemic class of 2019, 13% fewer Wisconsin seniors in the class of 2021 filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to data compiled by the Forum. The FAFSA is a key predictor of whether a high school senior will go on to college.
In Milwaukee, where great gains in completion numbers had been seen, the drop from 2019 to 2021 was 26%, setting Milwaukee Public Schools and city charter schools back to where they were before 2017.
“These declines carry ominous implications since the FAFSA is a crucial first step for many students toward securing the financial aid necessary to attend college,” the Forum noted in its report.
Thecompletion numbers for the city and state fell by greater margins than the nationwide numbers, which, including private schools, fell by 8%, the Forum found.
Some of the drop could be due to an overall decline in the number of students in the graduating classes at public high schools. But completion rates, which take into account student population, also dropped.