I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it’s time to fill out your FAFSA. Yes, it’s that time of year again when you have to sit down and beg the federal government for money. However, you should know that the FAFSA has changed a lot since last year. When the US Department of Education announced that they would be revamping the FAFSA form it sent ripples of concern and worry through college students and their families. Suddenly, the FAFSA would no longer be opening on October 1st like it always had. In fact when the US Department of Education announced the changes they did not specify an exact date, instead they crossed their fingers and hoped it would be open by December 31st, 2023. During the “soft launch” of the form it was open for 30 minutes, then promptly shut down for maintenance. The goal of the new FAFSA as stated by the US Department of Education was to “provide streamlined user experience,” dubbing the form “A Better 2024-2025 FAFSA form”. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. As soon as the form opened it was disastrous, with unclear wording on many of the questions, site shutdowns, and the elimination of the “sibling discount”. The biggest faux pas: a mistake made by the US Department of Education that “will lower the amount of federal financial aid many receive unless it’s remedied soon.” All in all, the US Department of Education has not made the FAFSA less stressful it’s made it worse.
The FAFSA, also known as Free Application for Federal Student Aid is a form completed annually by college students and their families in order to qualify for financial aid. It is a critical piece of a student’s college experience. The FAFSA has always been known for being a time-consuming and arduous process, which is what prompted the renovation. It must also be stated that the revamping of the FAFSA would expand eligibility for the Pell Grant and federal student aid in general. However, those strides in accessibility have been overshadowed by the horrible rollout of the new form. To start, filling out the FAFSA in a timely manner is integral to receiving aid; however, the Department of Education never gave an exact date as to when it would open, leaving many students in a feeling of limbo. Once it was open, the California Student Aid Commission, a state agency, recommended that students wait a week or two before filling it out.
The “soft launch” period of the FAFSA seems to have ended, but that has not stopped the influx of students struggling to fill it out. One of the worst aspects of the new FAFSA is the way the questions are worded. One question asks if your parents are willing to provide information on the FAFSA (which they are required to do for you to qualify for aid), however on the form the question is worded as “Are the students’ parents unwilling to provide” (emphasis on the unwilling part). The wording of this question has led many students to mistakenly select the yes option; however, that means your parents will not be providing information on your FAFSA, making you ineligible for aid. Students will not be able to fix this until the make-corrections feature of FAFSA goes live…someday.
The worst part of the new FAFSA is a miscalculation made by the US Department of Education. During the revamp of the form, the Department of Education was instructed by lawmakers to use “a new, more generous formula to protect more of a family’s income from being used to determine financial aid eligibility. They also told the department to adjust its math for inflation.” Unfortunately, the Department of Education did not do the last part— adjusting for inflation— and now families will receive less aid. Adjusting for inflation would have protected families’ income; now, without the adjustment for inflation, it seems as though families have more income than they actually do, thus resulting in less financial aid. The US Department of Education does not seem in a big hurry to fix it.
Instead of taking immediate action to correct their mistake, the Department of Education has danced around the right way to rectify it. The Department of Education has cited their lack of solutions due to “timing and data constraints but [that they] will make updates for the 2025-2026 aid cycle”. Essentially, the US Department of Education is taking the route least complicated for them, instead of what is best for the millions of students who rely on financial aid. The Department says that fixing the mistake now would further delay things. However, that is not an adequate excuse. Higher education is becoming increasingly inaccessible to most people with the cost of attending a university “[having] more than doubled in 20 years” and “the amount families actually spent on education [reaching] $28,026 on average.” Now is not the time for financial aid to be harder to acquire, now is the time for the US Department of Education to do everything in their power to rectify their mistakes and ensure that college students have the funds to go to school.