2024 was supposed to be the year when filling out the dreaded FAFSA form was going to be easy. The form was being updated to a new user-friendly version, and students would be able to rest easy knowing their financial aid packages would soon empower them to attend the college of their choice.
Instead, the rollout of the new form has been a nightmare, as it has been delayed by several months, is riddled with errors, and students are now staring down the reality of having to wait months for their financial aid letters.
But amid this disaster, the Department of Education is trying to take a victory lap by celebrating the fact that 3.1 million students have filled out the form and that it is fixing a problem that failed to account properly for inflation when awarding financial aid.
But the latest failure of the rollout was the department’s announcement that colleges and universities would not receive FAFSA information from the department until March, the same month that colleges are supposed to provide financial aid award letters to students. Under normal circumstances, this data would have been provided to colleges beginning in late January.
In effect, the incompetence of the department’s FAFSA rollout is going to condense the timeline significantly for students who are choosing a college because they will not receive their financial aid packages until far later in the spring term. As most college students can attest, the size of a financial aid package from a given institution can greatly influence whether or not a student chooses to attend.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, shared with me that colleges in his home state of Louisiana are concerned that the FAFSA failures could upend the college plans of thousands of students.
“These unacceptable delays from the Biden administration creates the real likelihood that many students will forgo college because they cannot choose a school without knowing their eligibility for student aid,” Cassidy said.
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To make matters worse, the delays that have already taken place mean that there is likely no viable plan to speed up the FAFSA data transfer and place students back on the normal college decision timeline.
The Biden administration’s incompetence has already cost the public billions at the gas pump and the grocery store with high inflation and record fuel prices, and the refusal to secure the southern border has led to chaos in cities all over the country. The failure to roll out the new FAFSA form properly is poised to upend the life plans of hundreds of thousands of prospective college students, potentially affecting an entire generation for years to come.