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Education

With Low FAFSA Completion Rates, Montana Students Leave Millions in College Aid on the Table 

Montana students apply for federal financial aid at strikingly low rates, foregoing millions in monetary support for post-secondary education. According to education experts, a lack of incentives to apply, knowledge barriers and government distrust may explain the phenomenon. 

By Denali Sagner
Lincoln County High School students study in an English class on May 29, 2024. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

Editor’s Note: This story is part of The Rural College Project, an ongoing series about efforts to expand access to higher education for rural students in Montana. This series was produced with support from the Education Writers Association Reporting Fellowship program.

 For high school students and their families, college is a complicated calculus. 

The higher-education equation is molded by academic offerings and family ties, campus size and distance from home, extracurricular opportunities and sports. Most importantly, for many families, it’s shaped fundamentally by cost. 

The U.S. Federal Student Aid office each year doles out around $114 billion in grants, scholarships, work-study funds and loans to help students and their families pay for higher education. Financial allocations are determined by FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which colleges and career schools use to determine how much aid each student is eligible to receive. 

“We know how crucial this support is to pursue higher education, particularly for the most underserved communities, and the positive ripple effects an education beyond high school makes in the lives of millions, their communities, and the country,” Federal Student Aid Chief Richard Cordray said in a January statement about FAFSA completion.

Yet in Montana, FAFSA completion rates remain distinctly low despite the key role federal aid plays in making college affordable for its students. 

Montana’s FAFSA completion rate in 2024 was 36%, compared to 44% nationally, ranking it 42nd in the U.S. among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to the National College Attainment Network, Montana students left $9.8 million in Pell Grants on the table in 2023 by not completing the federal aid application.

“There is so much aid to support Montana students in accessing some kind of higher education and training that goes on unused,” Crystine Miller, director of student affairs and student engagement for the Montana University System, said.

According to education experts, a confluence of factors has kept the state’s FAFSA completion rate low, limiting students’ much-needed financial support as they embark on the road to higher education.

According to Ange DeWolf King, director of transfer and special projects for the Montana University System, Montana does little to incentivize students to apply for federal aid, contributing to suppressed engagement with FAFSA. 

A dozen states have implemented universal FAFSA policies, which require students complete the application in order to graduate high school. Others have created incentives programs for FAFSA completion, including eligibility for scholarships and grants. 

In West Virginia, students who complete FAFSA are eligible for a state-sponsored scholarship that provides up to $5,500 per year for in-state students attending West Virginia University.

“States that have mandated FAFSA as a high school graduation requirement tend to be at the top of list when it comes to FAFSA completion,” Katharine Meyer, higher education research fellow at the Brookings Institute, told the Beacon. 

Beyond mandating students apply for federal aid, states with universal FAFSA policies have bolstered support for high school graduates as they navigate a convoluted system, Meyer added, describing the cultivation of a “culture of FAFSA.” 

Louisiana, which became the the first state to mandate FAFSA completion in 2018 but rolled back the policy this past year, offers students free FAFSA completion assistance and college access counseling. Seventy percent of Louisiana students completed FAFSA in 2023, and 56% did so in 2024, ranking it second highest in the nation after Tennessee. 

“Because it’s a high school graduation mandate, [they’ve] built up an ecosystem of support that’s going to guide students through a challenging time,” Meyer said. 

She noted that a large portion of federal aid recipients are nontraditional students and adult learners, for whom there is no comprehensive data on FAFSA completion. 

Montana educators said that the state’s relationship with privacy and concerns over government overreach may also play a role in low FAFSA completion.

Montana’s 1972 Constitution includes a unique right to privacy, which states that “the right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest.”

Montana’s privacy right has had far reaching cultural policy implications, from abortion to online consumer protections. The statute has cemented its place in the state’s collective psyche, which experts say may inform decisions about whether or not to participate in the federal financial aid process.

“We have a culture of privacy in Montana that’s important. We have a culture of ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” Miller said. “Not that those things aren’t valid and great. It’s just that from a policy perspective, if we are really trying to ensure that we have a strong economy, that we are competitive with our workforce, that Montana doesn’t get left behind as a rural state … Then that becomes a problem.”

Meyer of the Brookings Institute said that distrust in government surrounding financial aid reached an inflection point this year with the botched rollout of the FAFSA Simplification Act. The federal act was designed to streamline the FAFSA process, however was met with glitches and delays, derailing many students’ college plans. FAFSA completion dropped 13% nationally as students struggled to complete their applications and aid packages were stalled.

“If you’re in a culture where you don’t have a lot of confidence in higher education or in the government to start with, one bad experience is going to be enough to not try again later on in the cycle,” Meyer said. 

While she believes the new FAFSA system will actually boost access in the future, its unsuccessful implementation marked a roadblock, especially for first-generation and low-income college hopefuls, who are often left to complete the aid process on their own. 

“The more you have an adult in your life who’s able to navigate this complex process with you, the easier it’s going to be,” she said. 

First day of school at Columbia Falls High School on Aug. 26, 2021. Hunter D’Antuono | Flathead Beacon

For Miranda Breding, a Kalispell resident and the mother of a high school junior, filling out FAFSA was a given. Breding grew up in Montana, attending a small Class B high school where she was nurtured and encouraged to apply for federal aid. She remembers completing FAFSA on her typewriter, which eventually helped her graduate from college debt-free. 

“I just remember FAFSA being part of the whole process,” she said. 

Breding’s son is a high achiever with dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer. She guided him through the FAFSA process this year and hopes he’ll be able to attend school with a significant scholarship. 

“I have spent my whole adult life being free of debt, meaning I was able to go on to get my master’s degree, buy a house,” she said. 

Though she was able to fill out the form, Breding said she has borne witness to the struggles that accompany the federal aid process. She said her son received little guidance on how to complete FAFSA at his public high school. For parents who didn’t attend college like Breding did, she said, the process seemed even more daunting. Friends in the Flathead Valley have told her they don’t think their child will receive aid unless they’re “destitute poor.” 

“I’m not going to put all of my eggs in one basket and think that the federal government is going to provide all of the money,” Breding said. 

According to King, the Montana University System director of transfer and special projects, far more Montanans are eligible for some form of college aid than they might think, and communication breakdowns have left families in the dark. 

The vast majority of Pell Grants go to students whose families earn less than $50,000 annually. The median household income in Montana in 2022 was $66,341, compared to $74,580 nationally. Thirteen percent on Montana minors live in poverty, and a burgeoning housing crisis has increased the economic strains on families and children across the state. 

“Low-income in Montana is a lot of students,” King said. 

King described a longstanding failure of higher education which requires families to demonstrate their income level before they’re told what aid they might receive. She said it’s time for colleges and universities to “flip that script,” increasing transparency about what funding might be available to low-income students. 

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