If any student in America wants to be eligible for financial aid, they must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The information that students and their families plug into the question boxes can determine whether a college is affordable or out of reach. This college application cycle, the Department of Education made changes to the form to make the process easier for everyone by removing many of its confusing questions and replacing them with only 18. It also aims to expand access to need-based Pell Grants to 610,000 new recipients. Instead of being a smooth rollout, the new FAFSA has been defined by repeated delays, further complicating millions of families’ already stressful college application process. While Congress and the Department of Education created the new FAFSA goal with good intentions, the shortcomings of its rollout have caused too much stress for families.
The FAFSA has been provided by the U.S. Department of Education since 1992, and its purpose is to decide the amount of financial aid a college student receives. Some of the various forms of financial aid determined by the form are Pell Grants, Federal Direct Subsidized Loans and federal work-study programs. It is not just the federal government that uses the FAFSA. Colleges, states and private scholarship programs also use the form to determine the amount of aid they give students. Over the years, people have complained about how long it took to fill out the form due to having to answer over 100 questions, ranging from social security numbers to the parents’ net worth. As a result, the federal government began the process of reforming FAFSA. The FUTURE Act, passed by Congress in 2019, allowed the IRS to give data to the Department of Education, including information on family income. In 2020, the FAFSA Simplification Act allowed the FAFSA to begin an ambitious evolution into a new form. An official from the Department of Education called it “the most significant overhaul of the application since its creation.” One of the largest changes included in the new FAFSA was how it calculated how families can pay for college. The amount was calculated by the number of family members in college, but now it will use family size based on tax returns.
The new FAFSA rollout was delayed by the Department of Education from the usual release date of Oct. 1 to a new date of Dec. 30. On Dec. 30, when students and families finally logged on, users were greeted with an “unfinished” website full of glitches. The Department of Education had to spend the first week of the new year fixing the website. To make the problem even worse, the department was not processing students’ applications to colleges, which is a process usually started the day a student submits their FAFSA form. Then, the Department of Education announced it would not send college student aid information until mid-March. To put this announcement in context, the department originally estimated colleges would receive this information in January.
Consequently, many colleges now must rely on their own ways to calculate financial aid for students. Many private schools use the CSS Profile form, which will allow them to give out financial aid estimates. Fordham has its own supplemental financial aid form, allowing it to give estimates. However, other colleges nationwide have postponed the traditional college decision deadline of May 1 to allow students time to receive financial aid and review their options.
The rest of this article could easily be devoted to the blame game developing between the Department of Education and Congress on who is more at fault for the current situation, but that would ignore the real victims of this mess: the students and families who need to fill out the FAFSA form. The sad reality of today is that for many Americans, a degree from an institution of higher education is out of reach without financial aid. Our nation’s universities and colleges now cost so much that financial aid is the only way they can afford it. And even then, it is still not enough to stop millions of graduates from going into financial debt. The FAFSA delay has robbed students and families of precious time to compare different financial aid offers and make the best decision for themselves. The number one priority for all colleges in America going forward this application season must be to ensure all students receiving financial aid packages have the proper amount of time to review them without needing to stress about an approaching decision deadline.
