2 min
High School Seniors in Limbo Over College Aid Highlands Current Audio Stories
-
- Daily News
Problems plague new federal form
Alison Chi's daughter has answered one big question: where she will attend college after she graduates in June from Beacon High School.
The other big question - how much it will cost - is taking longer.
"She's decided where she wants to go," said Chi. "But until we know what the whole financial package looks like, she can't commit."
Families in the Highlands with students planning for college in the fall have been in limbo for months following the U.S. Department of Education's debut of a revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, which determines eligibility for grants, loans and work-study jobs.
The agency reduced the maximum number of questions from 108 to 46 to make the online process less challenging. However, technical problems have left colleges waiting to receive the information they need to calculate how much aid they can offer, which is a vital factor for many students when selecting a school from among those that accept them. Students already in college are also waiting; families must complete the FAFSA each year.
Before Congress approved legislation in 2020 mandating the simpler FAFSA form, students could begin applying on Oct. 1. Within five days, the Education Department would send colleges the needed data.
This year, students and their parents had to wait until Dec. 31 to begin completing the FAFSA form and faced outages and glitches. The Education Department said that, once an application was submitted, it could not be corrected (such as by adding a missing signature) until late January, which was pushed back to mid-March and then to April.
Colleges began receiving data for some students on March 11, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, but the process had to be stopped because the Education Department used the wrong formula to calculate financial need.
The Education Department said on Tuesday (April 9) that it has sent information for 7 million applicants to schools, states and scholarship organizations and is now processing applications within three days of submission.
Chi's daughter applied to 18 schools; some have reported receiving her FAFSA data but others are still waiting. At a recent program for students accepted to Emerson College in Boston, one of her daughter's choices, "you could hear the frustration in the voices of the people from the financial aid department," said Chi.
In February, the State University of New York (SUNY) pushed back its deadline for enrollment deposits by two weeks, to May 15, for state residents. Other colleges also have extended deadlines, said Amanda Cotchen, a guidance counselor at Haldane High School.
"A lot of admissions offices have fortunately recognized that this is putting pressure on families," she said.
Problems plague new federal form
Alison Chi's daughter has answered one big question: where she will attend college after she graduates in June from Beacon High School.
The other big question - how much it will cost - is taking longer.
"She's decided where she wants to go," said Chi. "But until we know what the whole financial package looks like, she can't commit."
Families in the Highlands with students planning for college in the fall have been in limbo for months following the U.S. Department of Education's debut of a revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, which determines eligibility for grants, loans and work-study jobs.
The agency reduced the maximum number of questions from 108 to 46 to make the online process less challenging. However, technical problems have left colleges waiting to receive the information they need to calculate how much aid they can offer, which is a vital factor for many students when selecting a school from among those that accept them. Students already in college are also waiting; families must complete the FAFSA each year.
Before Congress approved legislation in 2020 mandating the simpler FAFSA form, students could begin applying on Oct. 1. Within five days, the Education Department would send colleges the needed data.
This year, students and their parents had to wait until Dec. 31 to begin completing the FAFSA form and faced outages and glitches. The Education Department said that, once an application was submitted, it could not be corrected (such as by adding a missing signature) until late January, which was pushed back to mid-March and then to April.
Colleges began receiving data for some students on March 11, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, but the process had to be stopped because the Education Department used the wrong formula to calculate financial need.
The Education Department said on Tuesday (April 9) that it has sent information for 7 million applicants to schools, states and scholarship organizations and is now processing applications within three days of submission.
Chi's daughter applied to 18 schools; some have reported receiving her FAFSA data but others are still waiting. At a recent program for students accepted to Emerson College in Boston, one of her daughter's choices, "you could hear the frustration in the voices of the people from the financial aid department," said Chi.
In February, the State University of New York (SUNY) pushed back its deadline for enrollment deposits by two weeks, to May 15, for state residents. Other colleges also have extended deadlines, said Amanda Cotchen, a guidance counselor at Haldane High School.
"A lot of admissions offices have fortunately recognized that this is putting pressure on families," she said.
2 min