Zach Perrier
Viewpoints Editor
A “soft launch” was used by the Department of Education for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form this January, a stark change from the earlier release of the FAFSA forms in previous years. Using the form, the Education Department calculates you and your parents’/guardians’ (if applicable) tax information — through means that I do not understand — to determine possible federal financial aid for college.
If you have never had to fill out the FAFSA, consider yourself lucky. Essentially, you worryingly meander through box after box, usually unsure of what to make of the often confusing tax language throughout the form. At times, the website attempts to point you in the right direction of forms and information. Regardless, questions can often still be confusing to those unfamiliar with terminology that the FAFSA requires.
Now comes the improved, new FAFSA form for the year: at least, improved in the eyes of the federal government. I sat and waited over break, stressing over the rollout of this new form where originally, the website didn’t even work. Honestly, even with the wait, I don’t think many could point out the differences between the old FAFSA form and the new one.
Thankfully, the form began to include a joint-IRS tool in 2021 that helped import tax information into the form with ease. But in the new FAFSA form, the added consent needed to access this IRS tool has caused headaches, as students online have struggled to find this consent and mistakably tried to manually input values, opening the door to mistakes and uncertainty.
This issue doesn’t stop at concerned students on Reddit threads. I dealt with the same confusion and frustration. Even Ron Lieber, the New York Times writer who has written extensively on affordability at institutions like Wooster, experienced the same problem with his child.
Make no mistake, there are upsides to this new FAFSA, including the ability for more students to be eligible for Pell Grants. The form has also changed a number of times since its introduction in 1965, slashing the original 108 questions on the form by more than half.
But as others have opined, the government’s odd, late release of the FAFSA form puts a lot of prospective students’ aid packages in peril. Inside Higher Education reported that colleges and universities have been scrambling to assuage the inevitable delays this year in aid offers. Wooster, at the time of publication, won’t be able to send aid offers until it receives FAFSA data around mid-March.
A lot of these concerns would probably be alleviated with a better service for students with concerns, rather than a robot that can’t make sense of the questions you’re attempting to ask. Look, I understand that both public entities and private companies struggle with providing any type of reliable customer service. But unlike when I call companies for minor technical issues, there are thousands of dollars and my ability to afford college on the line.
The deadline for the FAFSA draws closer and closer, filling me with dread as my half-completed form collects digital dust. Despite years of issues and backlash, the FAFSA has become friendlier to the lower income families that the form should serve. But much like the rollouts of other websites like healthcare.gov, working online frameworks continue to elude the federal government, jeopardizing the experiences of those who need aid the most.
