What Happened to Applying for Student Financial Aid This Year?

However, this year, applying for financial aid was a problem for many students. The new free application for federal student aid (FAFSA) was rolled out, and it was riddled with problems.
The SAI replaced the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and was supposed to reflect cost changes by adjusting for inflation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. In its initial calculation, the Department of Education didn’t account for inflation. Without that adjustment, students didn’t qualify for as much assistance.
Knowing the amount of financial aid available helps students decide which colleges to attend and whether they’ll need to borrow tuition money.
The Education Department processes the submitted FAFSA forms before sending offers to students and financial aid offices. Once the college admission offices receive the offers, they put together a financial aid package (which includes what the college is willing to provide) for prospective and current students. The prospective student then has the opportunity to decide on where they will attend.
But there was a glitch in the process. Because of the indexing mistake, the schools didn’t receive the processed forms in a timely manner. The schools received many of them between April and May 1, 2024.
The problem was that colleges throughout the country require a decision from the student by May 1 in any given year. This left many counselors and students scrambling.
Even those students who weren’t affected by the initial FAFSA problem suffered as college counselors sorted through the students.
The theory was sound: simplify the FAFSA form. To start, the law reduced the number of questions on the form from 108 to 36, and the language was changed to make it more comprehensible.
It also expanded Pell Grant eligibility and removed outdated restrictions, with the goal of making financial aid more accessible to students.
It was supposed to help additional low-income students. For example, the old EFC allowed a minimum estimated family contribution of zero. With the new SAI, the contribution is below zero.
Republicans point out that the Department of Education was too focused on student loan forgiveness and let the FAFSA work slide.