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Hey, good morning. Patricia Murphy here. It's Saturday. This is Seattle Now. Today,

we're bringing you stories from public radio stations around Washington. First, a story about

financial aid in Washington State. High school seniors are staring down their last semester,

but completions of the FAFSA or free application for federal student aid are dropping.

SPR's Eliza Billingham reports how Washington State is trying to encourage every student to apply

for the college aid they qualify for.

The January dip is well known to school counselors and administrators.

It's when all the momentum built up in the fall to get students to complete FAFSA starts to drop off.

At their last meeting of 2025, the Washington Student Achievement Council reiterated its goal to get 46,000 high school seniors to complete FAFSA.

Council Research Associate Natalie Alvarado said they also want to close the gap between students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and those who don't.

FASA completion among free and reduced price lunch eligible students is 5 percentage points lower than those not eligible.

So if we don't focus on this gap now, we're at risk of falling further behind on the students who need the aid the most.

Some initiatives are already working.

Alvarado said after 9 Mile Falls school district got connected to one of the

council's partnerships, its FAFSA completions shot up to 50% by the end of the year. That's compared to

11% the December before. Now, the Achievement Council is trying to keep the momentum alive during the

...