The 2024-25 Federal Aid Financial Student Association (FAFSA) form process has implemented a major redesign for the first time in over 40 years.

Also called the “Better FAFSA”, this redesign includes changes to the form itself, the eligibility calculation, and how students and families will complete the application. The changes were introduced by the FAFSA Simplification Act, which is part of the FUTURE Act; both are federal mandates that were passed by Congress in Dec. 2020. 

As waves of students submit their FAFSA forms and try to find ways around issues with the new process, the state is trying to make their experience easier. But, students all over the country have been voicing concerns that this process only seems easier on the surface.  

“I feel like [the FAFSA update] was meant to be positive but in a way it’s kind of negative,” said Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) student Natalya Gonzalez. “It’s a lot more vague which leads to more chances for mistakes to happen, which can put a student in a difficult position — especially if they don’t have English-speaking parents.”

According to UC Santa Cruz Financial Aid Director Lorena Rodriguez, despite technical difficulties with its implementation, the FAFSA form is “truly simplified.” In the past, filling out the form could take 40-60 minutes to complete, but now it is estimated to take between only 10-15 minutes.

“They’re lowering the amount of questions from around 100 to around 50,” said Christopher Hein, an EOP student at UCSC. “In the past, it’s been a really confusing process for me to figure everything out, especially with my parents who aren’t very technically savvy, so hopefully this is positive.”

Breaking down Key Changes and Student Concerns

Among changes to the FAFSA form, the new term “contributor,” was introduced. It refers to anyone who is asked to provide information on the form. Contributors include the student, spouses, biological or adopted parents, and step-parents.

While an individual Financial Student Aid (FSA) ID is still required for each participant to fill out the FAFSA, each “contributor” can now get a FSA ID even if they don’t have a Social Security Number (SSN). 

According to Rodriguez, the Department of Education ran into technical difficulties in verifying the identities of mixed-status family contributors (families who have members with SSNs and without). 

Out of over four million students who filled out the FAFSA form since December 2023, over 100,000 of them have experienced glitches and issues with their applications. These glitches have overwhelmingly affected applicants and contributors who do not have a SSN.

Students who come from mixed-status families have not been able to submit their form online, and the Department of Education has advised affected families to have the student start their portion of the aid application but not submit it until they receive additional guidance on how to move forward. Rodriguez also mentioned that the Financial Aid Office has been told to advise students not to file paper applications.

Another key change is the implementation of the Student Aid Index (SAI) to replace the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) formula. 

The SAI is part of calculating a student’s eligibility for needs-based financial aid. The number is generated using the information provided in the FAFSA. It acts as a starting point that is plugged into the needs-analysis formula: subtracting a students’ SAI and other financial assistance (scholarships, grants, etc.) from their overall cost of attendance.

There is also a greater range of possible outcomes for the new SAI formula. An institution can still only award students an aid amount equal to their tuition; however, the SAI now allows negative outcomes. This incorporation considers a greater range of needs for students, as there is a clearer division between students who qualify for high amounts of aid. Students with an SAI of less than zero dollars are now more prioritized for federal grants with limited funding, such as Federal Pell Grants. 

This year, there are three new brackets to determine Pell Grant eligibility: the Calculated Pell Grant based on SAI, the Maximum Pell Grant, and the Minimum Pell Grant,.

According to Lorena Rodriguez, the long-term impacts of the FAFSA update are estimated to provide 600,000 additional students with financial-aid eligibility, and 1.5 million students with an increase in their Pell Grant eligibility. However, some students have concerns about the new Pell Grant system.

“FAFSA is really discerning the line between lower class and upper class, so if you’re middle class or lower middle class then the chances of you getting a higher amount of financial aid could be a lot lower,” said EOP student Natalya Gonzalez. 

The needs-based formula incorporating the SAI also removes consideration for the number of family members in college.

“If you have other family members who are also in college, before it would increase the amount of money you got, and now in this new system it wouldn’t,” said EOP student Christopher Hein. “That would definitely negatively impact me […] because I know my parents spend a lot of money sending both me and my brothers to school around the same time because we’re pretty close in age.”

Trial and Error

Numerous other issues with the 2024-25 FAFSA submissions have plagued students, including signatures disappearing from saved forms and students unable to return to the form after exiting.

“My parents and I were trying to do the FAFSA within a certain time frame and it would just be closed for maintenance a lot of the time,” said Gonzalez. “When it finally opened, we were like ‘oh we have to rush to do it,’ and then at the end of the FAFSA […] an error message popped up on my computer […] and so we tried logging out of everything to do it from my dad’s computer, and it just sent – I didn’t even get to sign my portion.”

In response to these heightened concerns, the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced the FAFSA College Support Strategy on Feb. 5 to provide additional resources to help schools and students complete the “Better FAFSA” form. It also helps colleges prepare to process student records with more accuracy. 

Unlike previous years, the 2024-25 FAFSA form was available Dec. 30 as opposed to Oct. 1. Students have raised concerns surrounding the FAFSA application deadline and the timeline on receiving aid.

“All the EOP students I’m friends with have voiced that they depend a lot on FAFSA and what they give out,” said Gonzalez. “I think an earlier [offer] date can give the student more insight as to how much they need to make over the summer to cover whatever the cost is not covered by FAFSA, or if they would need to take a gap [year] to cover the costs.”

According to Lorena Rodriguez, continuing students should not experience many delays and  receive their financial aid offers in Summer 2024. Additionally, the deadline has shifted from March 2 to April 2 to compensate for technical difficulties and for the applications’ delayed release.

The UCSC Financial Aid Office is aiming to provide more outreach to students who have been experiencing “Better FAFSA” struggles. They are hosting informational workshops and Q&As to help students and educate them on completing the application.

“The most important thing is to try to raise awareness that the FAFSA Simplification is a great change, but with any great change there is going to come difficulty with implementation,” Rodriguez said. “We’re going through hurdles with this implementation, but we still want every student to take advantage of this and apply for financial aid.”