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The already stressful university admissions process was thrown into disarray this year by a botched bureaucratic upgrade. Due to gridlock and delays in the federal financial aid process, some high school seniors and current college students are unable to receive aid packages from their schools.
The dirty secret of university tuition fees is that most people end up not being able to pay the full amount, but delays mean many students still haven't received a real offer. Students cannot plan unless they know how much it will cost.
Ironically, the meltdown occurred because the government tried to make it easier to fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid).
Katie Lobosco, a CNN reporter covering higher education, points out that all college students, whether freshmen or returning students, must file the FAFSA to qualify for federal grants and loans. Masu. In most cases, the FAFSA is also used to determine the financial aid offered by colleges, but some colleges require students to submit additional forms.
The FAFSA fiasco has created a double student loan problem for the Biden administration. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is using executive authority to forgive many existing burdensome student loans. Meanwhile, his administration has struggled to get students access to financial aid, putting some students at risk of not receiving scholarships and grants in the first place. You may end up taking on more student loans.
I spoke with Lobosco via email to find out what's going on with the FAFSA.
wolf: What the heck happened to the FAFSA this year?
Robosco: Frankly, the entire FAFSA process has been hit with one delay after another this year, leaving students and colleges in limbo.
At the request of Congress, the Department of Education announced a major overhaul of the FAFSA for the 2024-25 school year. The new version is intended to make the college financial aid application process easier for students and families, but the form's rollout has been anything but smooth.
First, the form wasn't available until the end of December, about three months later than usual, and I was offline for many hours a day during the first week of January. Since then, the FAFSA process has been plagued with issues and glitches, making it difficult for some students and families to fill out the form.
Additionally, over the past month, a series of FAFSA calculation errors have been discovered on the back end that may impact approximately 1 million forms that have already been processed.
These mistakes cause two major problems.
- So far this year, the number of students who have completed the FAFSA is small.
- Universities are far behind schedule in delivering financial aid awards to prospective students who are deciding where to attend next year.
wolf: Have all students received aid letters at this time?
Robosco: Some, but not all, issues have been fixed. Some known issues remain that affect some people when filling out forms. And the Ministry of Education still needs to reprocess some documents.
Typically, colleges send financial aid award notifications to students in March, but this year schools did not begin receiving FAFSA information until March. Once we receive the applicant's information, we can create an aid package (usually consisting of scholarships, grants, and loans) to offer to the student.
Most of the students I spoke to are still waiting for that letter, and because of the complicated way financial aid works in this country, they won't know how much college will cost them next year until they receive the letter.
wolf: When do high school seniors have to decide where to enroll next year?
Robosco: Colleges typically give students May 1, commonly known as “College Decision Day,” a deadline to declare whether they will enroll in the fall and pay their deposit. Hundreds of schools have said they will postpone this year's deadline because of issues with the FAFSA, but others have not.
That's why students and families are so upset. You may have to decide where to register without having all the information about how much your options will cost.
wolf: What do we know about the potentially hundreds of thousands of people who have not yet completed the FAFSA?
Robosco: It's no exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of students will have to submit forms again this year to qualify for financial aid starting in the fall. And there are concerns that low-income families who need the help the most will fall through the cracks. It is caused by any glitch in the process.
As of March 22, about 34% of high school seniors have filed the FAFSA, according to the National College Attainment Network. This is approximately a 29% decrease compared to the previous class at the same point last year.
According to NCAN data, the percentage of high school seniors filing the FAFSA from low-income schools and schools with a high percentage of minority students has declined significantly.
wolf: Do you know why this happened?
Robosco: There are many responsibilities. The Biden administration said this was a major undertaking that would transform not only the FAFSA form itself, but also the calculation and back-end processing systems, and requests for more funding from Congress were not met.
Republicans argue that the Education Department has been so focused on implementing Biden's student loan forgiveness policies that FAFSA efforts have taken a backseat.
Some disgruntled families say the government should not have released the updated forms unless they were ready in prime time. But Congress required the changes to take effect by January 1, 2024, a deadline that had already been pushed back by a year.
wolf: I remember a shockingly horrible development of healthcare.gov, a bureaucratic failure that was fixed in subsequent enrollment periods. Will this FAFSA issue be resolved next year?
Robosco: No one knows for sure, but I think the FAFSA process will be smoother next year. There may be problems here and there, but the Department of Education resolves them all as they arise.
Additionally, the government intends to open the FAFSA on October 1st, as usual, for students applying for financial aid for the 2025-26 academic year. This will give students and families more time to fill out the forms, and if all goes to plan, colleges will have enough time to get the required funds from the FAFSA in order to send aid packages to students in March. you will be able to get information.
wolf: Although the Biden administration has received poor reviews for this FAFSA fiasco, Biden has made significant efforts (without Congress) toward student loan forgiveness. What's the high-level overview you should know about it?
Robosco: this is true. The Biden administration has made it easier for borrowers to receive debt forgiveness. Approximately 4 million people have had their federal student loans forgiven under the Biden administration, totaling about $144 billion.
The administration has done this primarily by canceling debt through existing programs that provide relief to specific groups of borrowers, including public sector employees, students defrauded by for-profit colleges, and borrowers with disabilities. . (Biden's broad student loan forgiveness program, which received the most attention, was struck down by the Supreme Court last year and never went into effect.)
But these debt relief efforts won't help current college-applicant high school students who are frustrated by their FAFSA problems. They only help students after student loans have accumulated and do not address the root of the problem of high college tuition costs.
wolf: You are bringing up this issue. What do you wish more Americans knew about how the financial aid process works?
Robosco: I think the issues we're seeing on the FAFSA this year highlight just how complex our nation's college financial aid system is.
College costs are rarely transparent to families. Universities publish tuition and room and board costs, but these “sticker prices” are usually not what students and families end up paying. Only once they receive a scholarship award notification from their current most coveted university will they truly know how much college will cost them next year.
wolf: Rising student debt has been cited as a major problem and barrier to economic mobility, which is ironic since a college degree is supposed to help people improve their situation. What are some more interesting ideas about how to fix the system?
Robosco: In all the years I've covered this issue, I can't say I've seen many innovative ideas gain traction in Congress. Because left and right generally disagree about the best approach.
Progressives like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have advocated using public funds to make some colleges free, or at least to reduce the burden on low- and middle-income students of borrowing money. They are asking for sufficient financial aid so that they do not have to complete the course. their degrees. Mr. Biden has proposed making two-year community college free.
A wide-ranging bill introduced by House Republicans includes a variety of provisions to address college costs. Among them are the following: Set limits on the amount students can borrow. and change the way federal student loan interest is utilized.
