This report was a collaborative effort between the Education Research and Data Center and the Washington Student Achievement Council.
Chapter 323, Laws of 2024 (Senate Bill 5904) extends and aligns the maximum timeframe allowed for students to receive three of Washington state’s need-based financial aid programs – Washington College Grant (WA Grant or WCG), College Bound Scholarship (College Bound or CBS), and Passport to Careers (Passport or PTC) – from a maximum of five years to six years. This means that students who have previously exhausted their academic quarters of eligibility remaining (QER) could regain eligibility for the WA Grant, College Bound, and/or Passport programs beginning in the 2024–2025 academic year. This extension will be vital to students who need an additional year of financial assistance to persist in and complete their postsecondary education.
The objective of this report is to provide the Legislature with information about the following impacts of the expansion: state aid utilization and degree completion outcomes. However, because of data limitations, the 2024 report cannot yet include information about the impacts of the expansion. Instead, this report includes the following:
- An overview of the expansion and the WA Grant, College Bound, and Passport programs.
- An estimate of the number of recipients in each program who may utilize the extension in the 2024-2025 academic year. Real data should be available for the 2025 or 2026 report.
- The most recent postsecondary completion rates of students who received aid in each program. Completion rates of the first cohort that will be affected by the expansion (entering cohort 2019–2020) should be available for the 2027 or 2028 report.
