JAMIE DIEDRICH
STAFF WRITER
9/16/2024
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has been delayed since 2022 and has been an ongoing issue continuing into this year’s FAFSA application. The delay itself was announced in March 2022 by the Department of Education.
There are several theories about what caused the delay, including bugs and the fact that the FAFSA does not account for inflation. According to Chase Bank, “The application was delayed because of the FAFSA® Simplification Act passed by Congress, which led the U.S. Department of Education to overhaul the FAFSA® process by shortening the application and making other changes, which caused the 2024-25 application’s release to be delayed.”
“They were behind schedule, and they just kind of released things. It was poor planning on their part, and that’s what we were met with,” said Bekah Schaub, Alma’s new Director of Financial Aid.
“We don’t even know if it was a priority to them because, obviously, they were also working on student loan forgiveness with the state repayment plan, which is now being contested in court. There was the fresh start for those who are in default to where they could regain eligibility,” said Schaub.
“So they were working a lot of different things. Things are still coming to light of what happened and why it happened. So for us, the delay was that they weren’t held accountable to meet the deadlines they were supposed to meet,” said Schaub.
Alma College specifically, along with several community colleges, allowed for an award estimation calculator to give students a general idea of how much aid they might receive. Part of the miscalculation was eligibility: the risk of students thinking they had received more aid than they actually had, such as the amounts given for Pell Grants.
“Obviously, they couldn’t go out with offer letters when incoming students were being notified that they were accepted to the college. Returning students didn’t know what they were going to be receiving for the upcoming year until much later than what they normally do,” said Schaub.
“So then students were scrambling to make decisions about whether or not they are going to attend Alma or if they going to go somewhere else. Returning students had to figure out, ‘How much of a course load can I take? Am I going to be able to return? Do I need to take time off? Do I need to get a job?’” said Schaub.
The advice given by Schaub can be summarized as being patient and remembering to file the FAFSA every year, highlighting that it truly is out of the department’s hands.
Another aspect of the Financial Aid rhetoric is the incoming new staff that has yet to experience the delay and is doing so for the first time, part of which includes Schaub, leading to further concern on each side as the department scrambles to understand the navigation of the FAFSA delay.
“A lot of people have left financial aid. So that’s also an impact. Right? So that means all that knowledge and that history, it’s not always there. Some financial aid offices only have a very small limited amount of history and background knowledge,” said Schaub.
The simplified FAFSA is being patch-tested on Oct. 1, but it will still be delayed for a majority of schools. “You were supposed to be simplifying it, and instead, we feel like they’ve made it a lot more complicated,” said Schaub.
The Almanian: News 
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