Giving Compass' Take:

· According to The Hechinger Report, only about 61 percent of high school graduates are completing the FAFSA application for federal financial aid in college. Writer Delece Smith-Barrow touches on the application and how its complicated form discourages a number of students from applying. 

· How would simplifying this application encourage more students to attend college? 

· Here's another reason why we should simplify the FAFSA process.

Students and their families may not be doing all they can to get financial aid for college.

The completion rate for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, among 2018 high school graduates barely improved from the class of 2017, according to a July report from the nonprofit organization National College Access Network.

For the class of 2018, 60.9 percent of graduates completed the FAFSA by June 29; among 2017 graduates, 60.6 percent had completed the form by June 30 of that year.

Filling out the FAFSA is the first step for getting federal financial aid, and often the first step for getting school-specific scholarships. Considering how expensive college is becoming, many students will need the money.

The price for tuition, fees, and room and board rose 34 percent, when inflation is factored in, between the 2005-2006 and 2015-2016 school years at public colleges, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. At private institutions, it rose 26 percent. The average financial aid award was $14,400 in the 2016-2017 school year for a full-time student, according to the College Board.

Read the full article about financial aid by Delece Smith-Barrow at The Hechinger Report.