Students from immigrant families appear to have lost state subsidies for college due to a problem with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, confirming fears from earlier this year.
The updated FAFSA prevented parents who did not have a Social Security number from adding their financial information online. Students affected by the outage had to wait months for the U.S. Department of Education to provide a solution so they could complete the form.
Texas colleges distribute the state’s financial aid on a first-come, first-served basis, which meant students from immigrant families were last in line for aid this year.
Texas counselors who help students apply for financial aid to make postsecondary education more accessible say hopeful students from households with mixed immigration status have received less money than they were eligible for. Universities do not track the immigration status of student households, making it unclear to what extent these students were affected.
“These are students who are eligible to complete the FAFSA. They are American citizens,” said Andrea Harper of the college access group Breakthrough Central Texas. “When they were moved to the back of the line because of these problems, they lost the battle… This will impact this group of students for many years, perhaps their entire lives.”
Students will still have access to federal Pell Grant dollars regardless of when they apply. But the state grant money can fill the gaps left after using federal aid, helping students pay for housing, transportation, books and other needs. The Texas scholarship averages $5,000 per student for the school year.
Karla Buenaventura Esquina already had the route mapped out from her home in South Austin to Texas State University when the new federal financial aid form was launched late last year. Ever since she took a campus tour, she envisioned going to Texas State. There, she thought, she would become the first in her family to graduate — and a role model for her younger brother.
But the financial help did not come through. Despite repeated attempts, she was not able to successfully submit her form until late spring. By then it was too late. In phone conversations with Texas State’s financial aid office, counselors told Esquina she qualified for the Texas Grant, but the school ran out of money before her form was processed.
Esquina instead enrolled at Austin Community College, where she qualifies for free tuition. She plans to work as a barista to save and wants to transfer to the state of Texas after completing her core classes.
“It was difficult at first. I wanted to go to college and experience everything new,” Esquina said. “But I don’t have to worry about my parents investing terrible amounts of money into college.”
Texas State, Prairie View A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas were among the universities that college access experts said could not provide financial aid to students from immigrant families because they did not receive state funding had more. money. The universities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sara Urquidez, an expert on college access, said she expects the rollout problems of the new FAFSA will result in a sharp drop in enrollment this year — and that students from immigrant families will be the most affected.
‘We’ll see. Even though they had done everything they could to attend a four-year institution, they just couldn’t make it financially,” said Urquidez, executive director of Academic Success Program, a nonprofit organization that helps high school students in Dallas, Houston and Collegestation .
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
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