By Rajika Chauhan
Staff Writer
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is a fixture in any prospective or returning college student’s financial planning, and is often subject to complaint and frustration. With a slew of changes being introduced by the Department of Education for the 2024-2025 form, the hope from the federal government is to make the application process faster and more efficient for all students, while increasing the likelihood of eligibility for aid.
The FAFSA is a free application handled by the federal government, which collects information regarding a student’s financial condition to determine their eligibility for federal aid. The resulting information is sent to the schools which a student is applying or attending, and determines the financial aid package they will receive from their institution.
It is recommended that both first-time and returning students fill out the application each year, including students who believe their family income may be too high to warrant federal aid, according to the Federal Student Aid website.
According to AP News, the new changes are reflected in the 2024-2025 form, which was released in late December as the Department of Education finalized revisions and modifications. Typically, the form opens prior to the start of the college application season in November, so that students are able to receive their financial award information alongside early college acceptances in December and January.
Changes to the form range from technical advances to different rules in determining aid eligibility. The hope is that this updated form will bring the FAFSA closer to its goal of effectively supporting students in their path towards higher education and careers of choice.
“Most students and families will be able to complete the process in less time and we’ll see more students qualify for need-based aid,” said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
A major change in the form is that it is now mandatory that any individual who must provide financial information on the student’s form create their own ID. Previously, only the student and one parent or guardian was required to save an ID, according to The Washington Post.
The form now also features an updated method of calculating the amount of aid a student is eligible for, with the former Expected Financial Contribution being replaced with the Student Aid Index. The two are separate formulas, both of which consider the income and assets of students and parents. However, the Student Aid Index does not provide any concessions to families supporting multiple students in college, according to AP News.
Another major change is the required use of the IRS retrieval tool, which automatically inputs an individual’s tax records from their IRS forms into the FAFSA. While the tool was previously optional, it is now mandatory to utilize it to provide financial information, with any objectors being unable to qualify for student aid.
In spite of these changes, the form has continued to be subject to complaints within the first few days of its launching. AP News reports that the early release suffered from multiple issues with glitches and inaccessibility, and made calculations of financial capability based on inflation data from April of 2020, rather than 2023.
“Adjusting these inflationary numbers is the right thing to do, and should have been done from the beginning. Unfortunately, because the Department is making these updates so late in the financial aid processing cycle, students will now pay the price in the form of additional delays in financial aid offers and compressed decision-making timelines,” said Draeger in a press release.
As a result of the need to update for recent inflation values, the form will not provide colleges with financial aid information until late January at the earliest, leaving a shorter window for families to make college decisions on the basis of cost. Whether the Department of Education’s efforts at overhauling the FAFSA will improve aid eligibility and ease of access is yet to be seen, and students in the ongoing application cycle appear to be the test case.
