REPORT: The Cost of Opportunity: Access to College Financial Aid in California

An analysis of newly available FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and Cal Grant application data by The Education Trust–West finds that low-income California students may be missing out on potentially hundreds of millions of student aid dollars. The Education Trust–West calculated FAFSA completion rates and Cal Grant completion and award rates both statewide and for individual California high schools. The findings are presented in the newly released report, The Cost of Opportunity: Access to College Financial Aid in California and related website, financialaid.edtrustwest.org. The data reveal that only 54 percent of high school seniors in California’s public high schools completed the FAFSA in the 2012-13 financial aid year. Only 50 percent of seniors completed the Cal Grant application.