Revised FAFSA Glitches Cause Financial Aid Hang-Up

• Anxiety among students about receiving financial aid for their first-choice college is overshadowing their excitement about being admitted.
• Delays in the release of the revamped FAFSA form have caused a delay in financial aid decisions accompanying acceptance letters, leading parents and students to postpone college decisions.
• The Education Department's efforts to simplify the FAFSA process and address delays include reducing verification requirements, deploying federal experts, and providing funding for assistance. However, some challenges persist, affecting students' ability to navigate the financial aid process smoothly.

This year, the anxiety that many students have about receiving the necessary financial help to attend their first-choice college is dampening their pleasure over getting admitted.

A later-than-anticipated release of a revamped Free Application for Federal Student assistance, or FAFSA, the form that schools use to compute financial assistance, is causing a delay in the financial aid decisions that often accompany acceptance letters. As a result, parents and students are delaying choosing colleges.

The Education Department said that the form would be simpler for parents to complete and that it would apply an updated methodology that factored in inflation when determining assistance eligibility. However, it wasn't prepared by October, when the forms for the upcoming academic year are typically made available. In December, the form was unavailable to many users during its soft launch. Also absent from the first version was the revised inflation tool.

Schools will have to make adjustments since they won't receive the data required to grant financial aid until next month. Some have abandoned the widely accepted May 1 cutoff date for students to accept their admission offers.

Virginia Tech recently announced its extension of the admissions deposit deadline for first-year college students to May 15, citing concerns among families regarding the FAFSA process. Juan Espinoza, the interim vice provost for enrollment management, emphasized the need for families to have more time to make informed decisions. The school anticipates informing families about financial aid in mid-April.

Education Department's Efforts to Mitigate Financial Aid Delays

The Education Department has announced its efforts to mitigate the impacts of delays in financial aid processing. These measures include reducing verification requirements, deploying federal experts to support under-resourced schools, and providing funding for technical assistance to non-profit organizations.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona emphasized the department's commitment to addressing the challenges, stating, "We are determined to get this right. We must, and we will." The statement reflects the department's resolve to ensure that students receive the necessary support and resources to navigate the financial aid process effectively.

Every year, over 17 million students apply for financial assistance through the FAFSA in order to pay for their college education. According to the department, almost 4 million forms have been successfully filed as of mid-February.

Despite the Education Department's claim that the new application will be easier to use, some parents and kids are still experiencing difficulties with submitting.