WASHINGTON — The last thing standing between Ashnaelle Bijoux and her college dream is the FAFSA form – a financial aid application that is supposed to help students get into college, but is instead blocking her. She has tried to submit it again and again. Every time I fail to continue.
“I feel overwhelmed and stressed,” said Bijoux, 19. The last time she tried the form, she almost burst into tears. “I feel like I’m being held back.”
Normally a time of celebration for high school students, this spring was marred by the federal government’s botched rollout of the new FAFSA application. By May 1, students usually know where they will be attending college in the fall. This year, most still have not received any financial aid offers. Three months before the start of fall classes, many don’t know where they will study or how they will pay for it.
“We’re asking them to make probably one of the biggest financial decisions – and decisions that will have the biggest impact on their future lives – without all the information,” said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student. Financial Aid Administrators.
The FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, has undergone a massive overhaul that was supposed to make it simpler and shorter. But a series of blunders by the Ministry of Education made it harder than ever, delaying university decisions by months and raising fears that hundreds of thousands of students would drop out of college altogether.
In the United States, the number of students successfully filing the FAFSA is down 29% from this time last year, and according to the National College Attainment Network, it’s even worse at schools with more low-income students.
The group’s CEO, Kim Cook, warned members of Congress this month of a potentially “catastrophic” decline in college enrollment, which would make the pandemic decline look mild.
For Bijoux of Norwich, Connecticut, the FAFSA problems threaten to undermine the promise of higher education.
For her, college is a chance to take advantage of opportunities that weren’t available to her mother, who immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti as an adult. Bijoux hopes to become a therapist and set a positive example for her three younger brothers.
If her FAFSA goes through, she should qualify for enough financial aid to help with the $13,000 per year tuition at Southern Connecticut State University. If not, she might go to a local community college, but even that will require loans if she can’t complete the FAFSA.
“That’s why it hurts, because it’s like you’re working so hard to go somewhere and do something and make something of yourself,” Bijoux said. “I thought I would start a four-year course of study and then work hard all the time, as I have done all my life. But that is not the case.”
The updated FAFSA form has one section filled out by students and another by their parents. But when Bijoux finishes her role, nothing appears on her mother’s online account. She keeps trying, but nothing seems to change.
Similar issues have been reported across the country, along with numerous other bugs that the Department of Education has tried to fix. Families calling customer service have experienced long wait times or say the call center has hung up on them.
It “sucks all the momentum” from families working to send their children to college, especially those going through the process for the first time, said Anne Zinn, a counselor at Norwich Free Academy, where Bijoux goes to school.
“I can only say, ‘Be patient, be patient,’ so many times before they throw up their hands and say, ‘Why am I doing this?’ “I’m just going to get a job,” she said.
The rollout has attracted a lot of criticism in Congress and is being investigated at the request of Republicans. Last week, Richard Cordray, the federal student loan chief who oversaw the FAFSA update, announced he was stepping down at the end of June.
The delays also pose a major threat to universities of applied sciences.
An enrollment decline, as now expected, could put many small colleges out of business or necessitate major staff cuts. Some colleges are pushing for emergency aid to stay afloat, said Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
“If they don’t get checks from the federal government to basically get them through next year, they’re not going to survive,” Pérez said.
The FAFSA has been the linchpin of student financial aid for decades. It is used to determine eligibility for the federal Pell grant, a scholarship for low-income students, and is required to receive federal student loans. Colleges and states also use FAFSA to distribute their own grants.
FAFSA was long maligned for being tedious, difficult, and intimidating for families without college experience. Congress passed legislation in 2020 intended to simplify the form. The Ministry of Education was ordered to reduce the number of questions from more than 100 to about 40, and change the formula to extend assistance to more students.
The problems started piling up as soon as the new form came online in December, already months late.
The first applications were processed incorrectly with an outdated inflation calculation. Later, a federal contractor miscalculated another formula on more than 200,000 applications. Each error caused delays, meaning students had to wait longer before hearing about financial aid.
Even more concerning is a misstep that prevented students from filling out the form if they had a parent without a Social Security number. Advocates say the system excludes hundreds of thousands of students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents but whose parents are not.
The Department of Education said Tuesday it is offering these parents a new way to manually enter their tax information. But this week, some students said they still couldn’t submit the form.
Federal education officials say they are addressing lingering bugs but making progress. More than 8 million student applications have now been processed and sent to colleges, the agency said, and new applications are processed within three days.
Yet the wait is far from over. It typically takes weeks for schools to prepare financial aid offers. Some colleges have extended decision deadlines to give students more time to weigh their options. But some held out for May 1, forcing students to choose a university – and make a non-refundable payment to keep their place – without knowing all the scholarship options.
In Baltimore, Camryn Carter waits to see if he will get a full ride to the University of Maryland or if he will face tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.
A top student and captain of his baseball and wrestling teams, Carter views college as a step forward in life. He thinks back to the time when he had to put the things back on the shelf in line at the supermarket because his mother could not pay the bill. A college degree would give him the stability he didn’t always have, the 18-year-old said.
But when he looks at the tuition, it’s intimidating. Along with Maryland, he is also considering McDaniel College, a private school in Maryland. If he registers there, he expects to borrow almost $30,000 a year.
“I’m trying to make the best decisions now so I can have a good future,” he said. “I’m a little nervous that it won’t go well. But I am faithful.”
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