Every year that you’re in college or your final year of High School, you need to fill out FAFSA. FAFSA is the Financial Application for Federal Student Aid. Many students (college and high schoolers) fill out the application to help pay for college depending on income and other factors that may apply to financials. This year, FAFSA was supposed to come out in October of 2023, but it actually came out on the last day of the year, December 31, 2023. 

So why did FAFSA even get delayed in the first place? And why is it so important to apply? FAFSA was delayed for a number of reasons including the miscalculation of needed student aid. FSA Announces 2024-25 FAFSA Will Go Live By December 31, ISIR Delivery Delayed states the various ways in why FAFSA was delayed. Usually FAFSA is given out in October and received by January. The article also begins to go into detail about the completion of FAFSA, how students will obtain their confirmation, and next steps. According to College Career Counselor Carol Morales, ”About 3 years ago, Congress mandated that the FAFSA be simplified. The whole idea of the ‘New FAFSA’ was to make the application more simple for students and families. The FAFSA Simplification Act required the Department of Education to implement huge changes to the online form and the backend technology that supports the application. Because of all these changes, the FAFSA form was delayed.” So what changed? When reading FAFSA Delay Complicates Students And Colleges’ Financial Aid Processes the article details how they made the process simpler for families to directly connect their IRS information to FAFSA. In all, it should lead to fewer corrections needed to be made later on. FAFSA is so important for several reasons. Morales goes on to explain in detail, “FAFSA is super important because it is the main way for students to get awarded federal, state and institutional aid. Many scholarships also require students to show proof of FAFSA completion in order to apply for scholarships. FAFSA is the largest source of aid to help pay for college or career/trade schools. It’s the single most important thing you can do to get money for college. Some families assume they won’t qualify for financial aid and don’t bother completing the FAFSA, but that could be a huge mistake. The class of 2022 left an estimated $3.6 Billion in Pell grants unclaimed by not submitting FAFSA.” In general it’s so important to fill out FAFSA because it can help students pay for college without going into extreme debt with loans. 

This all could become stressful for current college students and high school Seniors. The whole process revolves around money and how much one is eligible for. Money is never a light subject for anyone. When asking Senior Celeste Ruiz about her experience starting the new version of FAFSA she expresses, “ I’m not sure how FAFSA itself can be better handled but I think that it would be extremely helpful if schools went into more depth on FAFSA and how to fill out the application.” Ruiz continues,”For me personally, applying for FAFSA hasn’t been that difficult of a process because I’m in Avid and we’ve been getting support from the 10,000 degrees fellows and Carol from the CCC as well. We have also talked about the FAFSA application in Avid as well so we were somewhat informed about what to expect when filling out the application.”

Even though FAFSA has been changed to better calculate one’s financials there still is much concern to be aware about. When questioning Morales about what places of concern could be she explained,“There are major problems occuring right now. For instance, parents without social security numbers cannot create their accounts nor be added as contributors. This is because verification questions haven’t been fully rolled out and the system cannot move forward without that information, even though it shouldn’t be a problem. Additionally, there are some other random glitches in the application and delays in processing times.” Morales continues,“This delay can impact college enrollment negatively. We are encouraging students to get this form turned in as soon as possible so that they can get their financial aid award letters sooner. If students wait and/or the FAFSA form continues to glitch further delaying the process, students may have less time to make an informed decision about the most financially suitable college before College Decision Day on May 1st.” Although this is the “new and improved” FAFSA, complications are occuring that are truly unfortunate for the current seniors and college students.