32 years after FAFSA’s creation, students are struggling to apply for financial aid

By Sofia Marcus

When George Washington University student Gabriela Peña filled out her Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, in March 2024, she was not expecting to receive a decrease in her financial aid package months later.

“I did something wrong on the FAFSA when I filled it out back in March,” said Peña, a junior studying computer science, in an interview. “You would think that FAFSA would check it once you submit it and then review it, but no, nothing. It just went through.”

Peña was confused when she saw that half of her financial aid package was missing because of one error about her family’s income on her application that went under the radar. What she didn’t realize was that this was part of a bigger issue other applicants were facing.

For the 2024-2025 academic year, the Federal Student Aid Office made many changes toward the FAFSA application, including fewer questions and different ways to determine financial aid eligibility. For instance, the Expected Family Contribution was replaced with the Student Aid Index to determine eligibility.

The removal of the family contribution was a shock to Peña, as this was an aspect of the FAFSA form that she had grown used to as she was filling out the application every year.

“I don’t why FAFSA decided to suddenly make these changes, but it affected so many people. I remember seeing so many TikTok [videos] about being careful when you fill out the FAFSA this year,” said Peña.

On Sept. 24, 2024, the House Committee on Education and The Workforce held a hearing highlighting the many errors The Department of Education under the Biden-Harris Administration made in the rollout of the FAFSA forms.

Representatives from the independent United States Government Accountability Office, known as GAO or “the congressional watchdog,” testified about their FAFSA rollout investigation at the hearing.

In their investigation, the GAO found that Federal Student Aid made 55 errors in the rollout of the 2024-2025 academic year forms, which was set to begin on Oct. 1, 2023. As of March 2024, only 35 issues are resolved.

According to the GAO report outlining their investigation, there were many technical problems. Among these problems were students’ inability to complete their forms, 75% of calls to the Federal Student Aid Office going unanswered during the first five months of the rollout, and a lack of confirmation of receiving paper FAFSA forms.

Melissa Emrey-Arras, director of education, workforce, income and security issues at GAO in Washington, D.C., acknowledged during the hearing that there had been a three-month delay in the availability of the forms, making the forms available on Dec. 30, 2023, as opposed to Oct. 1, 2023.

Additionally, the Department of Education, per Emrey-Arras’s testimony, was 161 days late in processing FAFSA forms, 197 days late in providing students with the ability to make corrections to their forms, and 305 days late in processing paper FAFSA forms. Batch corrections towards FAFSA submissions have yet to be made by colleges, resulting in a delay of more than a year.

“Seeing some of those statistics, such as the 75% of the calls going unanswered, that was news to me,” said Sarah Austin, a policy analyst for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, in an interview. “We have heard from members that students aren’t able to get help on the phone. Students aren’t able to actually even talk to a person. They’re getting hung up on.”

In addition to unanswered calls, the Department of Education was not clear or timely in its communication with applicants and colleges/universities about the FAFSA delays, the GAO found.

George Washington University, among other colleges, released statements explaining the FAFSA issues and how they affect current students at the university, as well as ways students can obtain financial support during this time.

Marisol Cruz Cain, the director of GAO’s information technology and cyber security team in Washington, D.C., revealed that Federal Student Aid first discovered that the October release deadline was not going to be met in August 2022, over a year prior.

The public was notified of this delay on March 21, 2023, seven months after the discovery of the issue. In mid-November of 2023, the public was then notified that the application would be made available a month later.

“It’s simply not okay what happened,” said Phillip Lovell, the Associate Director of All4Ed, an advocacy organization dedicated to increasing educational opportunities for all students, in an interview. “I think that the Department [of Education] is certainly taking the situation seriously, but there’s no question that it was a mess. And it was incredibly frustrating for students.”

Peña, among other students nationwide, took to the popular communication platform Reddit to display their frustration with FAFSA and other financial aid issues.

“I got my financial aid package today and 50% of my aid is gone yet my family’s financial situation stayed the same,” wrote Peña on the GWU conversation board in Reddit.

Her response warranted other FAFSA applicants and students to express concerns over their ability to afford college for this academic year.

One user commented, “I lost over 10,000 dollars of my aid, I’m freaking out,” while another user blamed the new FAFSA system implemented by the Department of Education under the FAFSA Simplification Act.

The act, enacted into law as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act in 2021, sought to change the ways in which eligibility for federal student aid was determined. It was implemented to simplify the FAFSA process, in other words.

“I think [the act] was a success. The problem is that the technology surrounding it was a disaster,” said Lovell.

Cruz Cain revealed during the hearing that Federal Student Aid did not fully test the new system, resulting in the numerous problems applicants experienced.

Particularly, the office was limited in their ability to measure the performance risks of utilizing a new technological database for the form, as they did not conduct an independent review.

According to the GAO report, in March 2022, the Department of Education hired a contractor to update the FAFSA database. However, development errors occurred that lead to the wider range of issues applications faced while applying.

With the 2025-2026 FAFSA form scheduled for release on or before Dec. 1, 2024, doubts continue to persist regarding the resolution of the 2024-2025 FAFSA errors.

“I do not believe the 24-25 FAFSA will be fixed by then,” said Austin. “There are probably minimal populations that [the 20 unresolved issues] are still affecting. [The Department of Education] will continue to actively correct and fix any of those issues, even though we’re now shifting into the 25-26 cycle.”

Students like Peña hope their FAFSA application process will go smoother for the next academic year.

“I think after my experience, it’ll definitely be an improvement because now I know all these [financial aid] terms so, in a way, the mistake was good because I learned what all that stuff meant,” said Peña. “But I’m definitely going to be way more cautious when I submit my FAFSA [for next year].”