Another FAFSA snag is delaying financial aid offers for prospective college students
Another FAFSA snag is delaying financial aid offers for prospective college students
The Department of Education has hit another snag in the rollout of its new FAFSA — the form students and their parents fill out to determine how much financial aid they can get for college. First, the form had some issues when it launched in December. Now, schools and students will have to wait until March for results they’d been expecting by the end of January. The delay is stressing out a lot of people who work with students.
In a normal year, prospective college students would already be getting some financial aid offers from schools. But without the data from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, schools can’t calculate those offers.
“The offer letter tells the truth for the first time,” said Jennifer Jessie, a college admissions consultant in the Washington, D.C., area. That’s the truth about what the actual price tag for each college will be.
And the most recent delay means counselors who work with high school students will have at least a month less than they expected to go over what’s a loan, what’s a grant and what’s a scholarship in financial aid offers.
“Money comes in a lot of different forms from colleges that can be difficult to understand at 17,” said Alex Rigney, a college counselor at Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology in New York City.
He said the FAFSA delays may prompt some students to decide not to go to college at all this year.
“It’s a delicate dance to begin with,” he said. “So I think any additional barriers is only going to make that more challenging.”
Some professional associations of higher ed officials are calling for colleges to extend their enrollment deadlines. That would give schools more time to send those financial aid offers and students more time to digest them.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
