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Six months after state budget cuts left Colorado high school counselors without access to a financial aid application tracking tool, the state is poised to get it back.
Colorado has received a two-year, $177,350 grant from the Statewide Internet Portal Authority to reactivate the Colorado Financial Aid Portal. The tool helps counselors track individual student progress on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The form opens up free college aid and scholarships to students.
“We saw a need to really address this important step in the process of Colorado students accessing higher education,” said Noah Kaplan, director of the Colorado SIPA GovGrants program.
Lawmakers cut funding for the administrator who oversaw the portal as part of efforts to close a $1.2 billion shortfall in the 2025-26 budget year. The Colorado Department of Higher Education said counselors would lose access to the tool in December due to the cut.
College advisors said losing the portal would quadruple their workload because they would have to return to asking students one by one about their FAFSA progress instead of using data to identify those who needed help.
In the SIPA grant application, groups such as the Denver Scholarship Foundation said losing the tool left educators “scrambling to gather information through time-consuming investigating.”
National College Attainment Network experts, who track and advocate for FAFSA progress and policies, said the statewide tool’s demise was unheard of during a time when states, including Colorado, want to increase financial aid application completion.
The NCAN FAFSA tracker shows a record 58.6% of students completed the form this year. Experts attribute the increase in part to a simplified federal application.
Colorado’s FAFSA completion rate also increased, but the state once again ranked near the bottom of the nation, with only 46.3% of high school seniors filling out the form.
Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.
