Perhaps the most irritating experience of the school year is having to fill out the FAFSA, the Department of Education’s “Free Application for Federal Student Aid,” that students must fill out if they want to apply for aid, loans and scholarships through their universities. When the Department of Education announced last year that they were making changes to the FAFSA, the news was welcomed and the thought of an easier-to-understand and use form was gleefully accepted. Unfortunately, however, the new FAFSA form has only resulted in more annoyance, and the spotty release of the form has caused a number of serious issues for students applying to universities and financial aid departments at schools.
The initial release time of the FAFSA was unclear, with a large banner on the website only stating that it would be available before Dec. 31, 2023. The form was not available until the middle of the week, Dec. 24 and it was not up for very long either. The website continuously shut down in the middle of students attempting to fill their forms out due to “scheduled maintenance” and the site would not be available again for days at a time. Many students, additionally, have been unable to complete the form at all.
The spotty release of the FAFSA has only created more issues for students who rely on financial aid and loans, making it even harder to access and process the form. Multiple schools have had to push their financial aid announcements — and thus the usual May 1 commitment deadline — back as a result of the form’s processing issues. According to Justin Draeger and Ted Mitchell, two educators with intensive knowledge of financial aid and its importance to students, “the department notified schools on Jan. 30, the day that they were supposed to get detailed information to determine how much aid was available for each student, that schools would not receive that data until sometime in the first half of March, leaving colleges scrambling to determine how best to issue aid offers as soon as possible.”
For many students, how much financial aid they receive from each college is vital to where they eventually decide to go to university, with costs of education being so high that students simply cannot afford to attend college without student loans and scholarships. The delays in the FAFSA are adding more stress to students who depend upon financial aid to make college decisions, and the demanding process of applying to college is only being made tougher by these delays and issues. On the FAFSA form, there are more than 10 issue alerts, notifying students and parents of issues that may prevent them from filling out the form or from the form saving their information, forcing students to spend more time inputting their tax information.
In addition, it is those who rely on and need financial aid the most that will be overwhelmingly affected by these issues. In a New York Times opinion article, Draeger and Mitchell write that “some students may be pressured into making one of the most significant financial decisions of their lives without having a complete picture of their options. Others may delay enrolling in college for another year, once the aid application process is running more smoothly.” What was supposed to help make college more affordable and accessible is now simply putting it out of reach for many students.
The Department of Financial Aid has also been unhelpful in fixing these issues. When students or parents attempt to call the FAFSA hotline phone number, where questions regarding the form can be directed, there is simply a voice recording informing callers that they are not currently taking calls. There is also an AI chat option on the FAFSA website that is unable to answer beyond a few simple questions, leaving parents and students struggling with the already difficult to fill out form.
Another detrimental change the FAFSA made is changing the way that their estimated aid is calculated. In past years, the form would take into account factors including parental income and savings as well as how many students each family currently had in college. Now, however, the FAFSA is no longer accounting for how many children each family has to support in college, leading to higher costs for families that already cannot afford higher education.
It is time for a better system that better takes into account students’ and families’ financial needs and allows them to fill out the form and receive financial aid updates in a timely manner. The current FAFSA and all of its issues are simply unfair to students who rely on this money to attend college and who now cannot make an informed decision for months to come. The inability to efficiently provide financial aid to students in this country is something that must be remedied because the current system is not sustainable.
Sam Rigante is a sophomore majoring in philosophy, politics and law.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece which represents the views of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.