It’s a depressingly familiar Washington story: A well-meaning update of a single Education Department college form turned into a massive policy blunder, harming the very students and universities it was meant to help. Worse, the department now appears to have failed to fix the problem in time for another application cycle. The department, and perhaps even Congress, needs to end the saga of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), now.
FAFSA is a form would-be college students fill out as they apply and consider whether and where to enroll. Students provide financial information to the Education Department, which then determines their eligibility for Pell Grants and federally subsidized student loans. It also transmits that information to colleges and universities, which use it to distribute private aid. In other words, FAFSA is crucial to financing Americans’ higher educations. It also has a well-deserved reputation for being grueling to fill out.
So, in the 2020 FAFSA Simplification Act, Congress instructed the Education Department to pare down the 108-question application to just 36 questions, giving federal authorities an October 2022 deadline. When it became clear the department could not meet that deadline, Congress extended it to this past January. But the department still struggled.
After months of delays, the department released its simpler form in December, shortly before the extended deadline. That release date meant it came out months later than students would usually be allowed to begin completing the form; the FAFSA season typically begins on Oct. 1, giving students time to gather financial information, turn in paperwork and weigh financial aid offers. Despite the extra time the department got, the new FAFSA was riddled with technical glitches. Data or processing errors marred some 30 percent of the 7 million FAFSA records the department sent to colleges.
Nearly 10 percent fewer high school seniors — about 225,000 students — filled out the 2023-2024 FAFSA compared to in the prior academic year, according to the National College Attainment Network. The department claims the dip was lower — some 4 percent. Either way, it suggests students were deterred from applying for college aid they were due. Black and Latino students and low-income communities were hit the hardest, with school districts lacking resources to help them navigate the process.
Those who completed their forms did so 75 days later than in prior years, on average. Once they submitted their forms, the department took months to send colleges the profiles of students’ financial status necessary to dispense aid offers. All this delay meant some students likely had to make decisions about where to attend college — or whether to attend at all — without full information about their financial options. One possible result is that some will incur more debt. Colleges could get hurt, too. An enrollment dip in one year means they lose four years of revenue per student who does not enroll.
One obvious imperative is to return to the regular Oct. 1 release date. But the department announced last week that it would begin only phased testing in October and conduct a full release on Dec. 1. If that is the case, federal officials should at least invest in old-fashioned customer service, communicating with students and their families about when and how they can fill out their forms and deal with technological glitches. Call centers should be open on the weekends, for example. Colleges should have an easier time fixing FAFSA errors, too, yet the department earlier this year rescinded one initiative that would have helped with that.
Congress should not escape responsibility, either. Easing the FAFSA process is a worthy cause. If the Education Department needs more money to fix the system, lawmakers should find it.
The Washington Post
