Best Android apps 2024: Great apps in every category

fafsa number :: Article Creator

How 3 Colleges Worked Past The FAFSA Confusion

While cost remains the largest barrier to higher education, three institutions of higher education ... [+] used the botched rollout of the federal financial aid form as an opportunity to rethink how they reach students, and award financial aid.

getty

The troubled rollout of the "Better FAFSA", the U.S. Department of Education's new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, threatened to become yet another barrier in the nation's challenging college access landscape. With months-long delays and technical glitches, many feared this modernization effort would inadvertently deepen the divide between students with and without resources to navigate some historically bureaucratic hurdles.

Yet, amid this systemic challenge, we also witnessed something remarkable. Communities most impacted by educational inequality demonstrated extraordinary resilience and innovation. They potentially created blueprints for a more equitable future where college access and financial aid award notifications are tailored and responsive to student needs and local communities.

From Colorado to Pennsylvania to North Carolina, some college and university leaders took the FAFSA rollout challenges as a call to action of their own—an opportunity to rethink how they leverage resources, reach students and families, and create systems and processes that do not rely on the timeliness or accuracy of the federal government. The following case studies are even more relevant as the National Student Clearinghouse released preliminary data on the state of postsecondary enrollment.

While overall undergraduate and graduate enrollment are on the rise (+3% and +2.1%, respectively) across all institution types, first-year student enrollment is down 5% from this time last year, representing the first decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Some point to the disastrous rollout of the Better FAFSA as a potential cause of the enrollment declines. The flawed rollout of the form resulted in a massive decrease in filings, according to the National College Attainment Network, and left the most vulnerable student groups with more questions than answers about affording college.

While the decline in first-year student enrollment is concerning, there are bright spots with the way some campuses responded.

Colorado Mesa University

Colorado Mesa University launched "The Wait is Over" initiative to tackle the delays in FAFSA processing by creating an early award process for financial aid packages (Disclosure: I am a trustee at Colorado Mesa University and chaired the board from 2021 to 2024). Using a new financial aid calculator, CMU was able to estimate financial aid awards for students based on family income, offering them a clear and reliable financial aid forecast even before the federal aid amounts were finalized. The initiative was aimed primarily at CMU's prospective first-generation and low-income students, for whom financial planning is often critical in deciding to pursue higher education.

CMU President John Marshall and his leadership team gained approval from the Board of Trustees in January 2024 to invest cash reserves in the initiative.

"Our trustees asked us if we could calculate how much financial aid we believed each student would qualify for, in order to make an informed college decision," said Marshall in an interview. "We knew if we calculated incorrectly, we would still make good on our promise. Despite the risk of potential miscalculation, we were committed to guaranteeing our preliminary offers, knowing the majority of our students are first-generation and low-income. We held true to our promise for a generation of students in our region and it made all the difference."

The CMU leadership team did not miscalculate its financial aid totals. In fact, CMU was off by only $280,000 from their original $2 million set-aside—much lower than anticipated and perhaps one of the best investments the university could have made during such a tumultuous year. New student enrollment was up by 35% this fall—the largest first-year class on record for this regional public university, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.

Elizabeth City State University

Elizabeth City State University is a public Historically Black College and University located in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The institution was founded in 1891 as a teaching school focused on training Black educators for North Carolina's public schools. Through the North Carolina Promise, students can attend ECSU at a tuition rate of just $500 per semester for in-state residents.

As the FAFSA rollout clearly created challenges for students, campus leaders leaned into their collective superpower: relationships with students and families and strong communication strategies.

"We understand the power of communication," said Karen Lucas, ECSU Associate Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management, in an interview. "We know that ECSU's current and prospective students need support to understand the financial aid process because most students don't realize how much aid is available to them through federal, state, institutional and third-party scholarships. We hosted financial aid events on campus, financial aid nights at high schools in our region, and private appointments to support students and families."

ECSU also leaned into talking more about the academic programs where students excel at gaining real-world experience such as aviation, business administration and computer science. Advisors talked directly with students about programs of study that would lead to a greater return on their investment, while also supporting them to complete the FAFSA.

"We are seeing an attitudinal shift about higher education and its value," Lucas says. "Much of ECSU's success with enrollment is having majors that result in a strong return on investment. We are confident the new FAFSA—and its long term overhaul—will allow more first-generation and low-income students access these programs."

Lebanon Valley College

Nestled between farmlands and a few hours from major cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., sits Lebanon Valley College, a private, liberal arts school in Pennsylvania. Even though the college enrolls fewer than 2,000 students, it was not immune to challenges posed by complications with the Better FAFSA launch. LVC worked with a consultant to devise a campus-specific form where families could self-report their financial aid information.

"Most of our students do not have financial information that is extraordinarily complicated," says Dr. James MacLaren, president of Lebanon Valley College, in an interview. "We were able to use their data to offer a range of a financial aid awards, which in many cases, came very close to what the student was ultimately eligible for if they had completed the FAFSA."

While MacLaren says LVC may get "lumped in" with other Northeast institutions of higher education, its focus on professional credentials and direct admittance policy between undergraduate and graduate programs sets the institution apart from others in the region. For example, in fields including speech language pathology, physical therapy, athletic training, and clinical mental health, first-year students can align their undergraduate studies to each field's graduate credential requirements, enabling enrollees to complete a professional credential in less time than if they had attended two different institutions.

"We have found that many of our students want to integrate their undergraduate program with their graduate school aspirations," MacLaren says. "If, through our new financial award process, we could help them understand the entirety of their financial obligation within a few thousand dollars, we could help them make a decision more quickly about their higher education pursuits."

The U.S. Department of Education started beta testing the functionality of the 2025-26 FAFSA form on October 1. The beta test will involve four stages, each stage taking approximately four weeks, when a limited number of students and community-based organizations will file real FAFSA forms to be processed by ED and sent to colleges and state agencies. The FAFSA is expected to be available to all students by Dec. 1, 2024.

"Ensuring that financially under-resourced students have a path to pursue their higher education aspirations ought to be a policy priority," said Annie Reznik, chief of staff at Partnership for Education Advancement, a nonprofit that provides scalable, sustainable, operations- and technology-focused solutions to HBCUs. "Reducing process barriers can meaningfully improve access to affordable opportunities for families. For mission focused colleges and universities, like HBCUs, that prioritize serving students that need financial support, providing more aid with fewer barriers would be a win."

These success stories aren't just about maintaining numbers—they represent a fundamental shift in how campuses are approaching college access and supporting current and potential students. When systems fail, local innovations often emerge that better serve historically marginalized students. The question now is whether we can learn from these grassroots solutions to build more equitable pathways to higher education, even after the current crisis subsides.

What To Know Ahead Of The Next FAFSA Rollout

If you are hoping to secure federal financial aid — through student loans, scholarships, grants or work-study funds — to help cover the cost of undergrad or grad school, you probably know that filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is essential. But after the fiasco surrounding last year's rollout of a supposedly revamped FAFSA, students and parents alike may (understandably) be worried about how this year will go.

In early October, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona "assured college leaders in a letter that the department had 'all hands on deck' to meet its new timeline this year, saying the government is working to release the 2025-26 form following software-industry best practices," said Money. Already, however, the FAFSA application process is not running the way it did before last year's big shakeup. Here is what to know.

When does the 2025-2026 FAFSA come out?

A major difference in this year's FAFSA form is when it rolls out. The start of October "typically signifies the beginning of the college financial aid application process," said Money, but this year, the FAFSA "will instead formally launch by Dec. 1."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Usually access to the form opens to everyone at once, but this year will implement a "phased rollout," which is intended to "allow the U.S. Education Department to run a testing period before it opens the form to the wider public," said Money.

As such, "some families will be invited to fill out the form beginning on Oct. 1, 2024, as part of a testing group to ensure the electronic form and accompanying processes are fully functional by Dec. 1," said CNBC Make It.

What changes are being made after last year's FAFSA issues?

Last year, "everyone who submitted a FAFSA for the 2024-2025 school year faced delays because the department was late in sending colleges student data needed to create aid packages," and some students therefore "started the semester without a final accounting of how much financial help they would receive," said The Washington Post. This year, the department is "trying to turn that disaster around."

As mentioned, the 2025-2026 FAFSA is rolling out in phases, so the Department of Education can troubleshoot along the way. "We're testing a complete FAFSA system. That means that students will begin submitting FAFSA forms with hands-on advice and support of experts," Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said to the Post. "The department will process those FAFSA, give students an opportunity to make corrections if needed and send the records to colleges and state agencies."

Additionally, the Education Department has made a number of improvements for this year, including better "online resources to help students and parents while they're filling out the form and 700 new call center agents to handle call volume," said Money. It also plans to "provide more transparency and clearer communication this year."

Perhaps most importantly, "once the form opens to all on Dec. 1 and applications are complete, ED says families' information should start being sent to colleges immediately," said CNBC Make It.

How can you prepare for the FAFSA application process?

Unless you are part of the beta testing launch, there is not much you can do before the FAFSA becomes widely available at the start of December. That said, there are a couple things you can keep in mind ahead of this year's application process:

Sign up for a FAFSA ID. You don't have to wait until the FAFSA rolls out to get a FAFSA ID, which is an "electronic signature used to sign the FAFSA online," said Saving for College. It is smart to do this sooner than later, as "students and parents have reported problems with getting or using an FSA ID."

Take note of schools' deadlines. "Colleges set their own deadlines for financial aid applications, and students should pay close attention to those as the season approaches," said CNBC Make It. Also note that "your college may require its own financial aid application," as after last year's botched FAFSA rollout, "some schools went ahead and created their own institutional applications." Make sure you are familiar with what the schools you are applying to require, and by when.

The FAFSA Change Behind Colleges' Pell Progress

The number of Pell-eligible students soared at many colleges this fall, likely due to a formula change in the new FAFSA.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Edsanchesnet1 and Peter Spiro/iStock/Getty Images

After a year of dour predictions that the botched rollout of the new federal aid form would drive low-income students away from college, higher ed institutions this fall are proudly highlighting significant increases in the number of Pell-eligible students in the Class of 2028.

Georgetown University boasted that its first-year class includes the "highest number of Pell-eligible students in more than a decade." The University of Georgia celebrated a 22 percent year-over-year increase in first-year students receiving Pell Grants and $9 million additional federal dollars in students' pockets. Temple University noted a 38 percent surge in Pell students from last year, bringing its population of grant recipients to a historic high.

But at this point, it's hard to tell how much of that growth has to do with institutional strategy.

Congress overhauled the formula determining Pell eligibility as part of the law making over the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. That revised formula was meant to expand eligibility to a much wider share of low- and middle-income families, as well as open the grant to incarcerated students, who were previously blocked from participating.

According to the Education Department, that effort paid off to the tune of 560,000 more Pell-eligible students—a 7 percent increase from 2023–24 and nearly twice the number predicted in a report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association last October. An Education Department spokesperson said the formula change has led to a 10 percent increase in the number of students set to actually receive Pell Grants this year—which, he added, is historically a "leading indicator of enrollment patterns among students who are likely to receive financial aid." At private, nonprofit four-year colleges, that number is up by more than 14 percent. More than six million students received the Pell Grant in 2022–23, about a third of all undergraduates.

The historic expansion of Pell eligibility is a rare bright spot in the otherwise disastrous federal aid form overhaul. But the raising of that bar doesn't necessarily mean individual institutions are enrolling a higher share of low- and middle-income students than last year.

Sarah Turner, professor of economics and education at the University of Virginia, said while institutions may have had some role in their Pell surges, the FAFSA formula change had an undeniably large one. She cautioned against correlating a change in colleges' socioeconomic makeup with an increase in their share of Pell students this year.

"I don't want to take away from real institutional efforts to recruit, admit and matriculate low- and moderate-income students," she said. "But it is possible that the institutions admitted practically the same students; we just shifted the bar mechanically … Colleges could be claiming a victory where there actually is very little change."

A Need for 'Context'

One year after the Supreme Court's decision striking down affirmative action, there are more eyes than usual on institutions' demographics. And after last year's bungled rollout of the new FAFSA, sustained—or increased—Pell numbers could be read as a sign of an institution's ability to weather that storm.

Teresa Valerio Parrot, co-founder and principal of the higher ed communications firm TVP Communications, said with more attention being paid, colleges are more likely to point to their growing Pell student populations.

"There is more interest in the disaggregation of [enrollment] data than in past years," said Valerio Parrot, who also writes the "Call to Action" blog for Inside Higher Ed. "A number of audiences want to be soothed that we're still educating the students we've always served, and a number of institutions are trying to affirm that they're still doing the critical work they've always done."

But she added that some of the messaging around that growth elides a simple fact: It's not yet clear what caused it.

"I'm always a fan of institutions sharing good news, but they need to put it in context," she said.

Jumping the Gun

The headwinds of the past year have also had a significant impact on institutional strategies to recruit more low-income students. The end of affirmative action put a spotlight on socioeconomic diversity as a race-neutral alternative, and many colleges have made sizable investments to buff up their financial aid offerings—including by expanding eligibility for tuition remission, which may have drawn more low-income students to campuses in a year when a confluence of challenges made that a daunting task.

Turner, of UVA, said that as of now, the available data is too limited to say whether those efforts have had much of an effect.

"It is complicated, and there are a lot of moving pieces. I'd love to unwind this, and I don't think anyone has yet," Turner said. "I don't want to be the arrogant person who says colleges' claims are all fictitious, because they're probably not. But this is why we should be cautious in proclaiming victory in the Pell share numbers."

Colleges could clarify this disparity by releasing additional data, namely enrollment breakdowns by income level alongside their changes in Pell students. But Turner said she's not sure when, or whether, institutions will do so—and for good reason.

"It's been a pretty tough season for those in financial aid offices," she said. "Demanding more data just because some researcher wants to sort out some Pell share measure is maybe not what institutional research people want to hear right now."

The important question, Valerio Parrot said, is not how much the changes of the past year boosted Pell numbers; it's how committed an institution is to sustaining that growth and supporting those students.

"Hope should never be a strategy to enroll and retain students; luck shouldn't be, either," she said. "These institutions may be doing great work, but they have to be able to show something for it in the long term. That's the best messaging strategy."

Search This Blog

Software And Application