Nick Hillman, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies higher-education finance and policy, and his graduate students Ellie Bruecker and Valerie Crespin-Trujillo have been tracking FAFSA completions for several years using federal data. For the latest FAFSA cycle, their graph shows a steep climb in the opening months. After hitting 1 million completed applications by December, the number of new FAFSAs slowed down until another, small surge in late February, as financial-aid deadlines approached.
Office of Strategic Communication