State unveils weekly FAFSA dashboards; outreach pilot shows gains but data, tracking gaps remain

The Senate Higher Education & Workforce Development Committee heard updates today from the Washington Student Achievement Council and the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges on efforts to increase FAFSA completion and financial aid outreach for high school seniors and other Washington residents.

The members were told about a newly launched FAFSA filers dashboard that displays weekly, cumulative counts of Washington FAFSA filers for the current FAFSA cycle, and a FAFSA completion dashboard that reports high school senior completion rates by geography. Joel Anderson, assistant director of external affairs for the Washington Student Achievement Council, described the filers dashboard and said it will be updated for the 2025–26 cycle next month. He said the filers dashboard distinguishes first-time FAFSA filers (no FAFSA in the past 10 years) from returning filers and compares current-week counts with the prior cycle.

Committee members were given context on the two tools. Kara Lawson, associate director for data quality, visualization, and research at the Washington Student Achievement Council, said the dashboards differ by population and measure: the filers dashboard counts all Washington FAFSA submissions while the high-school dashboard reports a rate (completed FAFSAs divided by the number of high school seniors). "Every Monday, the FAFSA filers…