ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON

STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Summary of FAFSA Processing Statistics

January 1, 2006—July 6, 2006
(6-month report)

The following is a summary of FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) processing
statistics for the electronic and paper FAFSA.

As of July 2, 2006:

 Over nine million students have submitted the FAFSA for academic year 2006/07.

 Ninety-four percent (over 8.5 million students) of the filers submitted the FAFSA
electronically. The share of students who submitted the electronic FAFSA increased by
nine percent from this time in 2005.

 The percentage of students filing the paper FAFSA decreased from slightly more than
one million to 534,000, a 51 percent decrease from this time in 2005.

Application Application Processed Year Previous Year Percent

Cycle
Source Type to Date to Date change
Electronic
2006/2007 Other Original 232,727 251,717 -7.54%

FAFSA on the Original 3,207,709 3,026,006 6.00%

Web Renewal 4,816,580 4,402,768 9.40%

EZ Original 118,409 68,629 72.53%

Renewal 182,973 105,954 72.69%

Total Electronic 8,558,398 7,855,074 8.95%

Paper Original 534,661 1,080,949 -50.54%

Renewal 0 9,104 -100.00%
Total Paper 534,661 1,090,053 -50.96%

Total 9,093,009 8,945,127 1.65%

Source: US Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA).
Note: “Electronic Other” refers to systems specific to individual institutions. “EZ” is a specific software package
used at a small number of schools.
The 2006/07 FAFSA Processing Cycle is an 18-month cycle from January 1, 2006 – June 30, 2007. Beginning in
2006/07, FSA discontinued paper Renewal FAFSAs and the paper Renewal FAFSA request process. For more
information, see: http://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/attachments/0607AppProcSysChangeGuide.pdf.