COLUMN: New FAFSA, newer struggles
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has been released annually by the United States Department of Education since 1992. For the past four years I have watched the calendar, waiting for October to hit so that I could apply and get my Federal Pell Grant.
The Federal Pell Grant helped me get through community college without paying a dime, and it was crucial for my first year at Central Michigan University, helping me shave off roughly $6,000 from a $26,000 tuition bill.
In October of this year, I was expecting the same FAFSA as always: opening Oct. 1 and taking about 20 minutes to complete with my mom on the phone. When I logged into my account, I was surprised to see that the Department of Education had announced they were revamping the application, with plans to make the application process shorter, smoother and provide more aid to more people.
As a result, the application wouldn't open until Dec. 1.
At this point, the changes sounded promising to me, and I was more than fine with waiting. December came around, and I logged on during finals week only to see the deadline had gotten pushed back again to Dec. 31.
I thought they were just polishing it and make sure it ran smoothly. No biggie, I had faith it'd be good to go by the end of December.
When Dec. 31 came around, I was home for Christmas break, and my mom was next to me as we pulled it up the site. To my dismay, it was completely locked.
The FAFSA had been released on a soft launch, meaning it was only open for small intervals of time each day due to the amount of traffic to the website. For the next week, I would check the page every few hours and stare at the grayed out "Start New Application" button.
I wouldn't get in until Jan. 5, in which I only completed the first page verifying basic information before it locked me out again. I wouldn't be able to fully finish and submit the form until Jan. 13.
Getting into the FAFSA form has been an issue for millions of Americans, according to USA Today. Even though I had been keeping up with news on the application and the possible soft launch issues, I wasn't expecting it to be this difficult.
I was not the only Central Michigan University student or Central Michigan Life reporter frustrated with this situation. Eden Phillips is a freshman who works for CM Life, and he expressed his frustrations with the FAFSA to me after a staff meeting.
"I essentially opened the website, saw I couldn't get in, asked Google for 20 minutes and then decided it's not my problem," he said. "It's just been so annoying."
Phillips said that his two biggest issues with the form involved getting into it, and contacting the university when it comes to filing under financial independence, which means without a parent or a guardian.
"I just want to get it done and over with," he said. "With all the errors and deadlines getting pushed back, I wonder if it's going to set back (CMU) as well. Will the funds even hit our accounts when fall comes around?"
Sarah Kasabian-Larson, the director of the Financial Aid office, shared what's been going on with the form on their end.
"We've been getting a lot of phone calls and emails about it, and we're really trying to be helpful to students and parents with this," she said. "It's changed everything we know about financial aid and the processing of funds. It's delayed a lot of things and squished our timeline to get things done."
When asked about the distribution of funds, she said that in previous years the office got student aid information immediately. Because of the delays, the U.S Department of Education has told them it may take a few weeks for these funds to be available.
"It shouldn't delay the award process for our current students," Kasabian-Larson said. "But it is frustrating for newer students. They would usually get their aid information in early February, but that's not gonna happen this year."
While getting into the application itself was an issue, it wasn't the biggest I faced when it came to the FAFSA. My biggest issue came with submitting the application.
This year, the FAFSA has simplified how parents access the form for their children. As opposed to having to log in and out, uploading tax documents and signing separately, the form now asks your consent to take your tax information from the system and has students email the secondary portion of the form to parents to prevent "hiccups."
However, I think the Department of Education failed to quality check this feature, because upon submitting the form with my mom, it completely crashed. Not just for one of us, but both.
My mom tried to submit her signature for the form, and it booted her back to the dashboard, claiming the signature was missing. Confused, she tried to open the form back up to no avail.
On my end, when I tried to submit my signature it gave me an error message and asked me to refresh the page. So I followed its instructions, and suddenly, I received an email.
The email said my FAFSA application had been submitted, but was missing a signature. My mom and I were on the phone with each other, absolutely lost. Neither of our signatures submitted on our screens, and neither of us could get back into the form. How was this possible?
On top of that, the email said we couldn't correct the error until the form was processed. This was also a new change, because in previous years you could correct information on the FAFSA for about a week after submission before processing began.
Perplexed, I took to the internet wondering if anyone else had experienced issue. Many had, taking to Reddit to ask if anyone else was struggling with it too. In fact. it's one of many known issues listed on the Federal Student Aid's Issue Alerts page.
Kasabian-Larson said students had been coming to the Financial Aid office with similar complaints as this one. She said that parents would go through their portion of the form and sign it, and then students would be unable to edit their form until it was processed. She also said there were errors where parents would attempt the sign the form and it would erase all their progress.
"The Department of Ed has been very transparent with us when it comes to any issues they find," she said.
Kasabian-Larson said that the Department of Education has been steadily working out these kinks. She hopes the form will be fixed by early February.
"We're going to start sending reminders out to students next week to complete it," she said.
In the meantime, she advised students and parents not to panic and to remain patient, as there is still time to get it done before CMU's deadline of May 1. She also said the financial aid office is there to help during this process.
"Unfortunately when it comes to getting in that's a Department of Education issue," she said. "But if they come across a question they don't understand on the application, we can help. That's why we're here. We're here because we love to help students through their higher education journey.
"A lot has changed in the world, and we're doing our best to help them. I know the change was hard and still is, but we're hear to help when we can."
Kasabian-Larson also said there will be webinars and workshops for parents and students to attend. The next one is a webinar she is hosting at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 24, called "Digging into the FAFSA: New Edition." At the event, she will be answering questions about the new form, how to fill it out and other issues applicants might be running into.
This event is advertised for parents and supporters of students coming to Central, but as a current student I was able to sign up no problem. I RSVPed for the event to learn what I did wrong with my application if anything, and you can as well here.
For more updates on the FAFSA application process, follow Central Michigan Life.
