Easier Aid Form Linked to Higher College-Going Rates

Assistance with federal application increases enrollment by 30 percent.

High school seniors who used a highly simplified version of the daunting federal application for student financial aid—and had help completing it—were 30 percent more likely to enroll in college the next fall than were their peers who had no such assistance, a study released last week

The report details the results of an experiment designed to measure the effects that simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, and providing personalized financial-aid eligibility information might have on students’ likelihood of applying for and obtaining aid, and enrolling in college.

Researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Toronto, and the National Bureau of Economic Research teamed up with H&R Block to offer FAFSA help to nearly 17,000 low- and moderate-income families in Ohio and North Carolina who used the company to file...