Kyle Mosley, director of financial aid at CCAC, talks to high school seniors and their parents about submitting the FASFA on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024 at the Calland Center in Point Breeze North. The Crossroads Foundation helps high school students prep for college and college applications. (Photo by Anastasia Busby/PublicSource)
Students and universities are depending on a smoother process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid after last year’s messy rollout.
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As his 17-year-old daughter, Camille, started seeking out information about securing financial aid, he needed help. That’s how he found himself sitting in Point Breeze on a recent, very chilly Wednesday night.
Crossroads Foundation, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that supports educational access, was hosting a FAFSA workshop, showing families how to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Completing it is a key step in getting money to help pay for college.
Aaron Chapman, a college access counselor for Crossroads, said it was more important than ever to ensure that families are confident completing and submitting the form — especially after a tumultuous rollout last year in which, he said, he was “left with egg on my face.”
The federal government overhauled the application last year. The revamp meant the form was released late and riddled with errors.
As a result, colleges were behind schedule in getting out financial aid packages, leaving many students scrambling to make enrollment decisions. Some opted not to complete the form at all. In Pennsylvania, 52.5% of the class of 2024 submitted the FAFSA — a 9% decrease from the previous year.
Camille Gilbert was a junior at the time. She saw these challenges play out over social media, and in person. One friend of hers, who’s now in college, was “definitely stressing,” she said.
“I was like, ‘I’m praying for you.’”
Now that it’s her turn, she’s nervous. But this cycle — which began on Nov. 21 — is shaping up to be different, according to local higher education advocates, high school staff and college administrators. Where frustration and anxiety once shadowed the FAFSA process, cautious optimism has taken root.
Chapman, for one, has not let any apprehension entering this cycle override his plan to help families get the most assistance they can. He’s learned it’s best to “roll with the punches” and be prepared to deal with them. Should any issues arise, though, he will act as a stress ball for college worries, ready to alleviate them as they come up.
“My goal is to make my families’ and my scholars’ [lives] easy,” he said.
High schools utilize partnerships
For many families at Urban Pathways 6-12 Charter School, Downtown, getting financial aid is the key to being able to pursue higher education. When that’s interrupted, things can get precarious.
Jason Kerr, the college and career coordinator at the school, started his job in August, so he didn’t witness how the last FAFSA cycle impacted Urban Pathways’ students. Nonetheless, he came into this year prepared.
Kerr talks with each senior every day in his class about life after graduation. They go over the importance of financial aid and opportunities to obtain it are frequently shared. Before Thanksgiving, he made sure students had accounts created so that by the time the FAFSA opened, students could readily log into the system.
Almost half of the 21-student senior class had already begun to complete or had completed the form by Dec. 10, helped along during a school-sponsored FAFSA night. So far, there have been no reported hiccups, he said.
“From our perspective, it seems to have gone very well.”
Baldwin High School similarly held a financial aid night in November with a large turnout. At both events, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency was represented. The agency was involved in one of the beta testing rounds for the latest FAFSA form, and some students in the state were able to complete a version of it before wide release.
“Students come in with a lot of good questions and really legitimate concerns … They want to set themselves up for success.”
One of the agency’s access partners, Wendy Dunlap, serves as a point of contact for school districts throughout five neighboring counties. During the beta testing round, she found that students and parents were completing the form faster, and “the logic behind the application itself” made more sense than it did last year.
And this, she is happy about.
“I think that everyone that’s involved with creating access to higher education has always wanted to have an easier application process for students and families.”
Colleges adjust strategies
Working through the FAFSA over the holidays? Unsure of where to begin? Here’s some advice from professionals.
- Sign up for an account on studentaid.gov at least four days before you plan to start filling out the form.
- Be sure to check the FAFSA submission deadlines for the schools you’ve applied to.
- Have information like Social Security numbers, last year’s tax returns and bank account balances ready.
- Complete the form even if you don’t think you’d qualify for grants. Many scholarships require this to be submitted regardless of your need.
- Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Resources exist at the national, state and individual-school levels. Take advantage of them.
The U.S. Department of Education said on Dec. 12 that it had received more than 1.5 million FAFSA forms, and had already begun sending information to colleges so they can begin packaging financial aid offers. By comparison, the department didn’t begin doing this for the last cycle until March.
That processing delay hurt LaRoche University’s first-year enrollment this fall, said Chip Weisgerber, the vice president for enrollment management. There were 15 fewer freshmen this fall compared to 2023, a notable decline for a university where first-years typically number around 150.
Going into this release, LaRoche administrators have made themselves available to prospective students, including at a fall open house financial aid session which attracted more families than the last two years, said LaRoche Director of Financial Aid Robert Clemens.
“Now people are really opening their ears, opening their minds [and are] ready to kind of dive in and address this stuff.”
At Carlow University, administrators acted fast to extend the university’s decision deadline by a month in an effort to meet students where they were during the fiasco, according to administrators.
In the end, enrollment increased by 4.6% this fall, giving the university its largest student body yet. Administrators believe this is a testament to their responsiveness.
For this admission season, Carlow invested in a “more robust” net-price calculator for attendance at the university, said Mollie Cecere, vice president of enrollment management and corporate partnerships. It takes into account family size, income, housing expectations, GPA and more to estimate how much financial aid someone might receive.
Now, “before [students] ever get FAFSA, they can really have a picture of what it’s going to cost them to go to Carlow,” Cecere said.
Financial aid packages to students accepted at Carlow and LaRoche universities are expected to go out early next month.
Organizations maintain outreach
Chapman, of Crossroads, also helps students assess their options once they start hearing back from colleges in the spring. He loads each financial aid offer into a spreadsheet and shows families “the real number.” Then, they talk about what it all means. His goal here is to help families understand the cost of attending each college.
Similarly, Billy Rutherford, a Pittsburgh Promise college and career coach assigned to Pittsburgh Milliones 6-12 University Preparatory School said he’s noticed growing stress about student loan debt, which has “led to a lot of really great conversations about affordability and scholarships and loans and kind of, long-term financial planning.”
“Students come in with a lot of good questions and really legitimate concerns,” he said. “They want to set themselves up for success.”
It’s why educating them about the FAFSA is so important, especially because many of his students don’t realize how the form opens the door for financial assistance, Rutherford said.
He has set up meetings to complete sections of the form with families, has met at a student’s home to field questions, and will call or text parents as well.
He and the other Promise coaches cycle through their list of seniors weekly to make sure they’re on track.
“I do a lot of productive nagging,” he said
Chapman adopted this approach, too. He heavily promoted the FAFSA workshop that Crossroads held earlier this month through emails, text reminders and face-to-face encouragement. As of Dec. 11, about 11 out of 36 Crossroads seniors had completed the form.
Would this increase once students return from winter break?
“Oh no, no,” Chapman said. “I’m going to get them to the finish line by the 31st of December.”
Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.
This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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