(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Financial aid delays cause uncertainty for students and universities • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
['Brooklyn Draisey', 'More From Author', '- March']
Date: 2024-03-08
Grand View University is seeing fewer deposits from students to enroll for the 2024-25 school year as families wait to find out how much financial aid they’ll receive, President Rachelle Keck said.
While the university has heard from families that their students want to attend schooling, and intend to if their finances allow, she said it’s hard for them to commit before knowing what they could end up paying.
“It’s kind of like saying, ‘Hey, go ahead and order carpet for your whole house and we’ll go ahead and order it and install it, we’ll let you know what (the price) is after we’re done,” Keck said, “That just doesn’t work.”
Continued delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, process have caused stress for universities both behind the scenes and in communications with their current and prospective students.
FAFSA delays have universities behind with distributing aid
Like Grand View University, public and private colleges across Iowa have had to push forward, by months, their timelines for sending out financial aid information to current students and applicants as they wait to receive results from FAFSA applications.
Before 2023, the FAFSA process would be opened to students in October and financial aid data woudl be sent to schools soon after, giving universities plenty of time to let their students know what support they’ll receive, Keck said. Recent changes to the form for this cycle have delayed its release until the end of the year, compressing the timeline quite a bit.
Once the simplified form became available, it couldn’t be accessed 24/7 right away, slowing down the process even further. Now applicants can use the form at any time, but universities have yet to receive completed forms in order to start their own work.
Currently the U.S. Department of Education is telling schools that they will begin receiving FAFSA data in mid-March, an almost six-month delay from when Grand View University would usually start going through federal financial aid packages, Keck said.
“They have not been able to follow through on any of those deadline promises in the past,” Keck said. “And so there is speculation that it may be April, and possibly even May, before we are able to get the information that we need as universities and colleges to get those financial aid packages out to our students.”
At a recent Iowa Board of Regents meeting, University of Northern Iowa Director of Financial Aid Tim Bakula said in November 2022, the university had already received around 2,400 FAFSA results. Between November and February, UNI was able to send and receive any needed corrections on forms, then began dispensing aid offers in February.
University of Iowa Director of Student Financial Aid Brenda Buzynski said by mid-February last year, the college had received more than 35,000 FAFSA results and completed more than 25,000 financial aid offers. This year, the university has received no results.
These delays are impacting both students looking to attend college for the first time and those already enrolled in school, Keck said, who have more to lose since they’ve already invested time and money into their education.
Bakula said some of the universities’ most vulnerable students, those that identify as first-generation or come from low-income households, are seeing the most risks from being left in the dark about their aid. While he said the university is still seeing encouraging numbers in terms of orientation signups and housing applications, FAFSA completion rates are lagging.
Iowa College Access Network Vice President of Marketing and Communications Brittania Morey said fewer families filling out the FAFSA isn’t a sure indication of fewer students choosing to attend college, they might just be forgoing the form because of the delays and issues they’ve heard about.
The worst thing to come out of these problems would be students choosing to not attend or return to college due to a lack of timely information about aid, university officials said. Central College President Mark Putnam said students could instead decide to go straight into the workforce in order to support themselves and their loved ones, making them less likely to return to college later in life.
“Just to see someone who’s either confused or put off by the possibility of not having information about their financial aid is probably a worst-case scenario,” Bakula said. “I’m still very hopeful that we’ll get these FAFSAs in March as indicated, hopefully, and can turn them around in April and allow families to make those decisions still, but any further delay would even have the potential to impact.”
Iowa Tuition Grant, state aid opportunities impacted by FAFSA delays
Financial aid programs outside of university supports are also being impacted by the delays in FAFSA distribution, and changes to the form itself.
Major changes to the FAFSA include the exclusion of additional family members in college and the requirement that applicants include the values of assets like family businesses and farms, Putnam said, widening the range of Pell Grant eligibility but also excluding certain people who have received aid in the past.
Putnam, who also serves on the Iowa College Aid Board of Commissioners, said the commission estimates that between 3%-5% of students receiving the Iowa Tuition Grant will no longer be eligible for it. The Iowa Tuition Grant is a need-based program that provides up to $7,500 to students attending one of Iowa’s private institutions.
“You could have people who are juniors in college right now … and they’re coming into their senior year with the Iowa Tuition Grant, and suddenly, it’s not there,” Putnam said.
Some of these changes are still being made, Buzynski said, making it even more difficult for families to predict what kind of aid they might receive.
With this uncertainty impacting state aid as well as universities, Putnam said there’s no way to know how things will shake out.
“There’s no thoughtful planning possible,” Putnam said. “We’re going to have to react.”
Higher education staff prepare for changes
The Iowa College Access Network is the leading FAFSA completion system in the state, Morey said, helping complete 6,000 FAFSA forms each year and offering training and support to Iowa communities for FAFSA completion.
The network has been working for a year to get ready for the FAFSA changes, following news and attending national trainings, Morey said. From there the staff could dispense that knowledge to other education professionals across the state.
“Beginning last June we started holding our first round of trainings to help make sure that school counselors and admissions professionals and financial aid professionals were ready when financial aid season happened, and that they could talk to their students and their families and help them be prepared,” Morey said.
They’ve had good luck with getting forms submitted for families with their information prepared, Morey said, and once offers start coming out, the organization will work with people to understand what they mean and answer any lingering questions they have.
Within universities, financial aid offices have had to make preparations of their own in order to efficiently go through the new FAFSA data and make accurate offers to students and applicants.
Keck said Grand View University staff are having conversations about what the next couple of months will look like with staffing loads, turnaround times and other expectations. With the changes to the FAFSA and how data is being reported, staffers have had to try and get used to a new system without any guarantees that it will work.
“It’s a whole new learning curve for our FAFSA informed staff, who have been doing this for years and years,” Keck said. “And the verification requirements are not any simpler.”
Putnam said one thing Central College is doing to try and alleviate families’ concerns without bogging them down with all the behind-the-scenes changes is offer them as much insight as possible into what aid they are likely to receive without making any promises. Letting them know what is possible based on their history or available information can help alleviate some stress while they wait for guarantees.
With all of the uncertainties that have surrounded the FAFSA this cycle, Morey said families should still submit their forms, just so they know what is out there for them whether they decide to go through with anything or not.
“Even with delays in the process, it still is important for families to complete the FAFSA,” Morey said.
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