As the price of college goes up and enrollment levels decrease, all eyes are on universities and the Department of Education to make college more accessible and desirable for American students. Many students are choosing alternate routes out of high school, mostly because they see college as too expensive and not worth the years of debt repayments. The total outstanding student debt reached over $1.7 trillion in 2023, with the majority being federal loan debt.
To help make college more accessible, Congress enacted the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2021. At that time, the FAFSA form, a federal student loan eligibility form, was a long, detailed document that was not user-friendly. The goal of the act was to simplify the process so that anyone could complete the FAFSA and know their aid eligibility.
This past New Year’s Eve, the new FAFSA form was released, though FAFSA claimed it was a “soft launch.” The form was to be open for certain periods of time over the next few weeks as FAFSA fixed any bugs or errors. Simply accessing the form proved to be a large struggle. For many, including my family, it took multiple days to find a time when the FAFSA form would let us log in and begin.
Once logged into the form, American families began to run into various other challenges when applying for financial aid. Families with parents lacking social security numbers report being unable to complete the form and many of the website design features make it hard for users to find all of the information they need and the action items they need to complete.
It was not all bad, though; the old FAFSA form had hundreds of questions and required lots of documentation to answer them. This new FAFSA was shorter — when it worked — and took significantly less time. The changes to the questionnaire, though, gave rise to a whole new host of problems.
One of the most significant issues was an incredibly confusing question for the student. In the section titled “Apply for a Direct Unsubsidized Loan Only,” it asks “Are the student’s parents unwilling to provide their information, but the student doesn’t have an unusual circumstance that prevents them from contacting or obtaining their parents’ information?” Apart from being vague and wordy, this question created an additional problem. Students were prompted to select “yes” to indicate that the parents were unwilling or “no” to indicate that they could obtain the information. Some students misinterpreted the answer choices and switched them around. Either way, if the student checks “yes,” they would not be available for subsidized loans, only unsubsidized.
Due to all of the issues with the form, the FAFSA deadline has been pushed back to mid-March. This delay will cause problems for students and colleges this application season. Due to the processing time and the time needed for schools to dole out financial aid offers, students may not get financial aid decisions until right before they must commit to college. This creates issues for students who need financial aid the most.
Some colleges have made adjustments to their commitment dates to give students more time to consider their options. The Cal-State system and the University of California school system both pushed back reply dates to give students, and themselves, more time to consider financial aid offers. At least 60 other colleges have followed suit to try to give low-income students a better opportunity. The worry is that some students will be so frustrated with the new format that they may fail to complete the FAFSA all together. There is already evidence of this, as submission rates were down about half in late January.
This latest debacle is just another example of the ways that the government has failed American students. In 2023, President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court right before loan repayments were set to begin after a hiatus. The government has left borrowers scrambling to repay their loans, or even get them in the first place.
Hopefully by next year, the FAFSA will actually be simpler and clearer for students and aid is more readily accessible for the students who depend on it. It is one of the most important factors that helps make college more equitable. For many students, if they cannot fill out the FAFSA, attending college is not even an option.
As our leaders preach inclusion and accessibility in education, it is important to hold them accountable in making actions toward those goals. American students deserve to be able to attend college regardless of their family’s financial situation, and they deserve leaders who will fight for them and follow through on their promises.