May 19 – A new FAFSA, billed as simpler and more streamlined, has been all but helpful to virtually everyone involved in the financial aid process.
“I’m not sure what they were trying to solve, but wow, they did a bad job,” said Sarah Ream, a mother from Greentown. “I don’t know what was wrong with the previous form.”
Ream, like many others, encountered problems when she filed the FAFSA for her two children in college.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid determines a student’s eligibility for financial aid. It is administered by the United States Department of Education. The FAFSA is completed each year a student is in college. It’s free to archive.
The FAFSA has a reputation for being difficult, especially for first-generation college students and their families. The federal form requests complex financial information.
Legislation was passed in 2019 and 2020 to revise the form and make it easier to file.
One of the goals was to reduce the number of questions asked while maximizing the use of information from other federal agencies, such as the IRS.
Previously, one had to track down their tax return information and enter it into the FAFSA. Under the new form, one can choose to have that information retrieved immediately from the IRS.
“That’s great, I think it will work,” said Sarah Soper, college director of financial aid for Indiana University.
The key word in Soper’s statement is “want,” because the feature hasn’t worked for many families.
Others have been caught off guard by inconsistent language.
“The most confusing part was that the wording on the FAFSA form was not the same as on the tax form,” Ream said. “I don’t know if I did it right or not.”
It’s one of countless issues facing families, school counselors and college admissions and financial aid departments.
A shortened timeline
The FAFSA filing window typically opens on October 1.
Students complete the form, which is then processed by the DOE.
The process determines how much a family is expected to pay for college. Once called the expected family contribution, it is now called a student aid index. This is a crucial figure. A Student Aid Index is required to qualify for federal student aid.
FAFSA information is then sent to the student’s applied for colleges. Those schools put together financial aid packages.
The students then decide where they want to go to school. Complete it in October and a student has a few months to decide on a major life decision.
This year’s graduating high school students have much less time to make that decision.
“We were told over the summer that it wouldn’t be in October, but that it would open sometime before Jan. 1,” IU’s Roper said.
That was technically true. The application window opened in the last days of 2023. However, because so many students tried to file, the website crashed several times. Soper said the website had been taken offline more than once for system maintenance.
It wasn’t until mid to late January that the filing system was easily accessible. IU did not receive the first batch of applications until March.
Given the delay in the filing period, there was a backlog in processing FAFSA forms. Soper said there were 5.8 million unprocessed claims nationwide when she spoke to the Tribune in mid-March.
Families have experienced two-month wait times before receiving financial aid packages from colleges. Soper said some families didn’t hear about their FAFSA application for a long time.
“The hardest part is we have no recourse,” she said. “There is no other way to help the families because the FAFSA is the piece of information we need.”
Many universities have postponed the deadline for confirmation of registration to May 1. For some schools that was May 15. For others, including Ball State University, it was June 1.
Allen Hill, a school counselor at the James and Rosemary Phalen Leadership Academy, a charter school in Indianapolis, told the Tribune in late April that none of his students had yet received a financial aid package.
The charter school is predominantly black and half of the students are immigrants. They also grew up during the pandemic and have spent most of their academic careers playing catch-up. Now that they are on the eve of graduation, they face even more obstacles.
Hill worries whether some of them will be soured on continuing their education. He encourages children to trust the system.
“A lot of the kids won’t be in school,” Hill said. “It’s that simple.”
Problems remain
Less time to decide on college is far from the only problem.
Colleges have received FAFSA applications without a Student Aid Index. That’s a big problem. That number determines the financial need.
“A lot of it isn’t useful because the number isn’t there,” Soper said.
The previous FAFSA had questions a student could answer to indicate interest in work-study opportunities. The new one doesn’t.
“We had to come up with new ways to determine if students are interested in work-study,” Soper said.
Soper said there is no demo site to prepare families, schools and colleges in advance for what to expect with the new rollout. Problems therefore had to be solved on the spot.
Problems are not exclusive to colleges and universities.
High school counselors have their own problems.
A 2023 state law requires high school students to fill out the FAFSA regardless of whether they plan to attend college. The thought is that more people will choose to go to college once they see what financial aid is available to them.
“We supported it because we believe every student should file a FAFSA, even if we know a large portion of them will not go to college,” said Hill, who is also executive director of the Indiana School Counselor Association.
School counselors are supposed to monitor and assist students in filing the FAFSA.
There’s just a catch: they don’t know who has submitted an application or not.
A website through the Indiana Commission for Higher Education should keep track of who filled out the form.
Ericka Echelbarger, director of student services at Northwestern High School, said the site is not up to date.
“I don’t know how they expect us to document when we don’t have any information about who did or didn’t do it,” she said.
Echelbarger said they only know for sure if a student has completed their FAFSA if one of the advisors watches the student submit the form.
She has heard from students who applied in December but did not receive their student loan index until March.
“I feel sorry for some of these kids who really need their financial help,” she said.
Many students at Phalen Leadership Academy in Indianapolis qualify as 21st Century Scholars. The program is intended for low-income students. They can earn a scholarship worth four years of college tuition. It aims to make higher education accessible to underprivileged students.
Completing the FAFSA is part of the process. High school counselors like Hill can track a student’s progress on ScholarTrack, a portal through the Indiana Commission for High Education.
However, the portal is not accurate. Hill said it’s the same deal as at Northwestern, he only knows when he sees a student complete the application.
Despite all the delays and problems, there is hope among university and school officials.
“I think a lot of the changes will be good for students and families in the long run,” Soper said, “but it has been a difficult period.”
Hill is confident the problems will be resolved.
“We should see a big turnaround in the number of kids going to school,” he said.
Spencer Durham can be reached at 765-454-8598, by email at spencer.durham@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @Durham_KT.
