Updated April 3, 2019

Giles County students are seeking to benefit from the state’s last-dollar Tennessee Promise scholarship.

According to an announcement from a partnering organization to Tennessee Promise, more than 53,000 Class of 2019 Tennessee students filed the 2019-2020 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, breaking the previous year’s record.

The scholarship offers high school seniors an opportunity to attend one of the state’s 13 community colleges or 27 colleges of applied technology tuition-free.

The pool of applicants is the largest to date and the announcement follows just days after the University of Tennessee unveiled its UT Promise scholarship, which will cover will cover tuition and fees for students with a household income of less than $50,000 a year.

The new scholarship is set to launch in 2020 with all participants required to be recipients of the state’s HOPE scholarship.

Tennessee appears to be leading the country in the FAFSA completion rate for the 2019-2020 academic year, with over 74 percent of current high school seniors completing a FAFSA as of March 8.

The Volunteer State has been the leader in FAFSA completion three of the last four years, tying with Louisiana for the 2018-2019 academic year.