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Iowa university leaders, students say federal financial aid difficulties continue • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

['Brooklyn Draisey', 'More From Author', '- March']

Date: 2024-03-25

LAMONI — Agriculture has played a large part in Iowa State University student Jennifer Holliday’s financial aid over the past few years. The junior and class body president at ISU said coming from a background in livestock and crop farming, scholarships from agricultural organizations and Pell grants have helped fund her education.

However, with changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) adding the value of a family farm or business to the aid formula, Holliday said she’s predicting some changes to how much aid she’ll receive this fall. That is, if the form she filled out will ever be taken off hold so she can actually submit it.

University officials say glitches are continuing, with federal agencies sending incorrect data back to the schools.

Despite her sister filing the FAFSA with the same information and having no problems, Holliday is eight weeks into a waiting period to get information back from the government so she can submit her FAFSA.

“I also have been talking with a lot of students across Iowa State’s body, (in) my position as student body president, and some of them, I won’t go into specifics with their stories or anything, they have the fear that they’re going to have to withdraw from college because they’re not going to be able to afford to stay,” Holliday said.

Ernst holds discussion on FAFSA issues

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst said hearing the impacts these FAFSA changes have had on students like Holliday is a driving factor in her reaching out to the higher education community in Iowa. Their stories are showing that the problems being discussed are real, Ernst said, and will cause some students to hesitate when deciding whether to enroll in college.

Ernst joined university students, staff and leaders at Graceland University Monday to hear their struggles and concerns with the FAFSA, which has seen continuing complications and delays after its rework. Results are finally being sent to schools, but university officials are saying the data they’re receiving can’t be used to offer aid.

The fact that students, whether they’ve successfully filed their FAFSA or not, still don’t know what aid they qualify for is worrisome, University of Iowa Director of Student Financial Aid Brenda Buzynski said. This is due to delays in the FAFSA’s release and the disbursement of results to schools, but now that universities are receiving information, some of it isn’t accurate.

Agencies send incorrect data

One area of the FAFSA simplification was having the Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of Education work together to provide tax information. But Buzynski said the wrong information is being pulled for the forms, making it bad data. The federal agencies are also using the formula to calculate aid incorrectly, making it inaccurate, she said.

It took the department a week to acknowledge the incorrect information, she said, and she’s worried about how much extra work could be put on her staff’s plate if the department doesn’t take the information back and fix it itself.

Right now the UI is working on what it can control, Buzynski said in an interview, like making sure the financial aid document is correct and ready to go once accurate information is provided. There is currently no timeline for when offers will be sent out.

“It would be irresponsible if we were to provide financial aid offers based on bad information, and we can’t do that,” Buzynski said in the discussion.

An Iowa State University graduate herself, Ernst said she knows what it’s like to rely on federal aid to attend school.

“At that time, my folks owned and operated a very, very small farm in Montgomery County, and I did receive Pell aid, so it was very helpful for me; I also had some scholarships, and it worked for me,” Ernst said. “If I had not had that support, I would not have been able to go to college. So really I understand the impacts some of these families are experiencing today.”

The concern Ernst shared with others at the table was that with these changes to the formula, as well as siblings not being counted on the form, many Iowa students will see more barriers to attending college, if they still decide to go at all.

Daniel Heady, national policy advisor for the Iowa Farm Bureau, said farmers are big proponents of the “do it yourself” attitude, so they often won’t reach out to colleges or organizations for help with things like the FAFSA. However, they also don’t know how to address questions asking them to calculate the unharvested value of their crops and other items that don’t translate to actual dollars that can be put toward tuition and fees.

Leaders worry aid glitches will discourage enrollment

With a more complicated form that negatively impacts farmers and their families, it’s more likely that potential students will just decide to keep working the farm.

“You shouldn’t have to sell the livestock in order to go to college, especially if these sorts of things are out there,” Heady said. “And the purpose of these are to provide opportunities to folks, which is pretty frustrating.”

Reta George, director of student financial services at Graceland University, said “the unknowns” are a large factor in making students hesitate to even try to get aid in order to pay for schooling. With no aid offers and little information to provide comfort, why would they commit to something they’re unsure about being able to afford?

“The thing at Graceland that we’re seeing, that I think we’re seeing across the state, is with the delays and changing timelines and things like now calculation errors and having to go back and redo things, the confidence in the whole process is eroding,” Graceland University President Patricia Draves said.

Ernst said she and her staff have been working to get more information from the U.S. Department of Education in order to answer questions about the issues and FAFSA data with minimal response. The department seemingly isn’t even able to define the term “investment farm,” she said, which is a problem, as no one else can either and applicants have questions about it.

They plan to send another letter to the department with these stories and concerns and share them with other members of Congress, to help bolster bipartisan efforts to address these problems.

“You are the subject matter experts, I lean heavily on all of you to provide that direction,” Ernst said. “And that’s why my team is here today, to wrap up all of this information, and we’ll stick it in yet another letter that I hope they actually read and respond to.”

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