The college affordability crisis has students working and borrowing all that they can in order to manage the cost of school. But a new report from the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) shows that the high school class of 2022 left an estimated $3.58 billion on the table last year in the form of unclaimed Pell Grant funds—around 14% of annual Pell expenditures.
That unclaimed money leads directly to fewer students attending and completing college.
Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives at the NCAN
The report’s methodology was simple. The NCAN started with the number of high school graduates who did not fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which was roughly 1.65 million. Assuming that non-FAFSA completers would be eligible for Pell Grants at the same rate as people who did fill out the application, the NCAN found that about 767,000 students would have qualified for funding but did not complete the form. The non-profit then multiplied this number by the average Pell Grant award of $4,686 to get the nearly $3.6 billion total.
There are plenty of reasons why students who might be eligible for Pell Grants might not complete the FAFSA. For one thing, it’s complex..
Dr. Michael Kofoed, an associate professor of economics at the United States Military Academy in West Point
However, it’s difficult to tell whether a student might be Pell-eligible without investing the time and energy that the FAFSA requires. Another problem is that many people who are eligible for aid may mistakenly think that they are not.
