The U.S. Department of Education's new financial aid form has made applying for help more difficult for some potential college students locally and across the country.

On Jan. 30, the "better FAFSA form" was introduced to simplify and redesign the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to ensure that 610,000 more students from low-income backgrounds receive federal Pell Grants. U.S. Department of Education Press Officer Alberto Betancourt told New Times that it's the most significant reconfiguring of the form since it was created.

"The redesign includes overhauling over 20 systems, some of which have not been updated in nearly 50 years. The improvements include allowing students' and parents' information to be pulled directly from the IRS and creating a tailored and streamlined experience for students," he said. "What used to be 103 questions can now be as few as 18 questions, taking some students and contributors as little as 15 minutes to fill out the form."

However, Cuesta College Financial Aid Specialist Julie Salgado told New Times that the department's attempts to make it simpler came with a ton of issues.

"They may have rushed it; I don't know what their process was, but I think the biggest issue right now is due to undocumented parents," she said. "Normally the FAFSA is for U.S. residents, and if parents didn't have a Social Security number, they would just enter all zeros. They would have to print out a paper, sign it, and mail it off, done."

Salgado said the 2024-25 FAFSA form made it so that undocumented parents have to create a Federal Student Aid ID to be able to log into the Federal Student Aid portal and enter their contributor information for their student's FAFSA.

"I think that's where most of the issues have come from because parents are trying to create their FAFSA ID and do the things they're supposed to do but now we are running into a bunch of roadblocks," she said.

Most of those hurdles come while students are trying to invite their parents to contribute to their online 2024-25 FAFSA form.

Parents who have a foreign address or no Social Security number can't contribute to the FAFSA document, so students receive an error message that reads "unable to complete this action," according to FAFSA.

Due to these errors and other ongoing issues, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators Director of Communications Allie Bidwell Arcese told New Times, they're seeing a drop in FAFSA applications.

"Just this week, the National College Attainment Network released data that found only about 27 percent of the class of 2024 has completed a FAFSA compared to 45.5 percent of the class of 2023 through the same date last year," she said.

The National College Attainment Network said that FAFSA submissions include applications that have errors, which need to be corrected by students to be processed. Errors can include a parent not being able to contribute information to the form or something as simple as a missing signature. FAFSA completions are applications without errors that have been processed.

"In previous years, FAFSA submissions have been about 7 percent larger than FAFSA completions. This year, through March 29, FAFSA submissions are a whopping 30 percent larger than completions," the National College Attainment Network stated. "This is likely due to students and contributors still being unable to make corrections to their submitted FAFSAs. Once corrections are open, we should see that 30 percent margin between submissions and completions begin to close as the data reflects the corrections."

Arcese said that due to the continued delays and errors, administrators are expecting to see an impact on college enrollment, considering that the vast majority of college students have yet to receive a financial aid offer.

"It's true that students—especially those from low-income families—will have less time to compare financial aid offers and make an informed decision on where to enroll," she said. "Meanwhile, many students have yet to complete their FAFSA, and the higher education community is concerned that some may have given up on their college-going aspirations. But there's still time to course correct."

Cuesta Financial Aid Specialist Salgado is also the parent of a high school senior who's been accepted to schools such as California Lutheran University and San Jose State University. She said that FAFSA delays are impacting where her son will go to college since he doesn't know how much financial aid he will receive just yet.

"I work in financial aid and see all the constant emails that come in, so I'm not too worried about it really affecting him once fall hits," she said. "I know colleges are doing every possible thing they can and will work their butts off to try and get the financial aid packages out to students."

While the new FAFSA has been a headache for some, Cuesta student Guin DeChance told New Times that the new form has actually made it easier for her.

"I know that they made changes this year, but I couldn't even tell you what was different than last time," she said. "It's really easy for me because I live in the same area as my parents so I could go over and just be like, 'Hey mom, you log in at the same time as me and we could figure it out together.' But I feel like it would have been really hard if I wasn't able to do that because we were trying to figure out how she could log in and how to put her information in and all that because it's a separate login."

DeChance, who was debating transferring to either Cal Poly or UC Davis next fall for biology, said that once she got her FAFSA document back, it was pretty seamless from there.

"I emailed the Cal Poly Financial Aid Office and was like, 'Hey, I'm kind of waiting on this to decide' because I was thinking of Davis as well and I wasn't sure how much money either one was going to give me," she said. "The day after I emailed them, they sent me my financial aid package stack, so I don't know if it was a coincidence or if it was because I emailed them."

Cal Poly's Financial Aid Executive Director Gerrie Hatten told New Times that many students have had trouble completing the FAFSA and this is reflected in the lower volume of records the school has received.

"The Financial Aid Office at Cal Poly is working hard to get students awards out to those students who have successfully completed the FAFSA, and our counselors are meeting with and assisting students who are still trying to successfully complete an application," Hatten said. "The California Student Aid Commission moved its state grant deadline to May 2 in hopes that more students will be able to complete the FAFSA and be considered for the state Cal Grant and state Middle Class Scholarship."

Hatten said she encourages students to complete their FAFSA by May 2, especially for students who have started the application and have not been able to finish it. Δ

Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at [email protected].