Fewer students nationwide applied for federal financial aid last year, which experts have chalked up to the botched rollout of a new application.

Problems included glitches and technical issues, especially for students whose parents don’t have social security numbers. The challenges added to the number of students who fail to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, even though it can unlock grants, loans and scholarships that make higher education more affordable.

Nationally, “we see millions of students who are eligible for financial aid, but that money is left on the table because they didn’t complete a FAFSA,” said Ebony Holmes with the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Aid, or LOSFA.

But Holmes and others in her office are cautiously optimistic that this year will be different: The U.S. Education Department is promising fewer glitches, increased call center staffing and a simplified application process.

Originally set to open on Dec. 1, the application is already available to students with verified Federal Student Aid IDs.

Here’s how Holmes and LOSFA are working to help Louisiana students and families prepare for the upcoming financial aid application season.

After last year’s challenges with FAFSA, what happened in Louisiana?

As of Nov. 8, we had about 33,478 high school graduates from the Class of 2024 complete a FAFSA. That is down by about 4,300 applications (from) the class of 2023. We’re about an 11% decrease from where we were last year.

However, we are still at a 62.9% completion rate overall, which puts Louisiana well above the national completion average of 53.6%.

(Editor’s note: Louisiana requires high school seniors to complete the FAFSA to graduate, but the state will end that policy next year.)

How is your office working to make sure Louisiana students still fill out the FAFSA?

Persistence, over-communication and teamwork.

We continue to do our FAFSA completion events with high schools, but we also partnered with post-secondary institutions to host several “FAFSA Frenzy” events across the state in February.

We did the “Go FAFSA Tour” over the summer. They had a robust digital media campaign that helped us really get the word out and continue to encourage FAFSA completion during that critical period.

Just trying to really be consistent and keep the pressure applied and saying, “Hey, you need to complete your FAFSA. Or, if you submitted it and it has errors, we can help you fix it.”

What are some lessons from the 2024 FAFSA cycle that you’re going to act on?

This go round, we are much more equipped to help families troubleshoot those issues that could possibly stop them from completing the FAFSA.

We had some really good results with our digital media campaign. That’s one of the things that we’re going to continue to really try to replicate this go round.

We are cautiously optimistic that we won’t see any of those widespread technical issues that we saw last year. Federal Student Aid has kind of been in a beta testing phase, and so they have been working on those glitches to make sure there’s a smoother rollout.

We’ve created a FAFSA guide to help families navigate the process. We are doing FAFSA Fridays, where we’re helping students and parents set up FSA IDs. And we are also in the process of creating a Facebook group specifically for our Louisiana students and parents.

What challenges are you anticipating this year?

In Louisiana specifically, it’s no longer a graduation requirement for 2025 graduates (to complete a FAFSA). So just continuing to over-communicate the importance of, “Why should I do a FAFSA?” and explaining what their options are.

And for those people that may have experienced (or) heard the horror stories about last year, or have some hesitation, trying to combat that.

What is your message about why it is important to fill out the FAFSA?

Our take is that it gives students access to financial aid, which is going to make post-secondary education more affordable.

We encourage them to talk to their post-secondary institution because a lot of the colleges and universities are going to want that FAFSA completed as well, even for institutional aid.

We usually tell students, it’s usually better to have one on file than to not have one.

What can high schools, colleges and universities do to motivate students to complete a FAFSA?

A lot of times the light doesn’t go off for them until they see that first bill, and they’re like, “Wait, what? How much money?”

Explaining that to them ahead of time, so that they’re making an informed decision when they fill out that FAFSA with their parents. Helping them connect the dots early on goes a long way toward influencing parents and students.