" … According to the Associated Press, the foundation called for three key changes: the elimination of complex questions that apply to few applicants, the creation of an auto-fill option for IRS data and permission to use two-year-old tax information to avoid delays in filing. …"
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/07/17/gates-foundation-fafsa-should-be-simpler/
Pretty skewed article. They refer to the 108 question FAFSA implying how difficult it is. The first 1/3 of the questions are demographic (Name, school, grade, etc). The next third are student income and assets. The last third the same for the parents. The form even tells you the line from your tax return to use. I really don’t think the FAFSA online (which uses skip logic so you don’t even go through all 108 questions) is the thing preventing people from using their eligible Pell Grant.
Its not that hard.
I can do it!
Admittedly, when I do the supposedly dummy proof onlne version, I can’t read the numbers, (& mix them up), so I have to print it out to double check it, same as I do with the taxes, but I should do that anyway.
Students who recieve FRL at school, could perhaps get a fast track version, but I see no need to use outdated financial information in order to recieve a federal grant.
For middle class families whose income comes from wages as employees, it is not especially complicated. Be happy.
It is a lot harder for lower income families that may be receiving different forms of needs-tested benefits, small business owners, independent contractors and so on. Even figuring out how many people are in the family is not such an easy question when you may have nieces/nephews living with you or multiple families sharing housing.
One benefit of using 2 year old tax data is that schools could package financial aid a lot earlier than many of them are able to do right now. I believe that an earlier analysis of this proposal showed that the variance in Pell grants was very small using that data vs. last year’s data.
Or if they used FRL information, they could use current year, but not have to wait for taxes, and the family initially wouldnt have to file anything more than what they needed to do for the school district.
As a low income student who received need-based benefits (aka welfare), I think the FAFSA was pretty easy. I don’t recall needing to report any of that and because I qualified for auto-0 EFC, I didn’t have to do several parts of the FAFSA.
I agree with @arabrab’s other points.
For 2016-2017, the feds are proposing to greatly reduce the dollar amount of parent assets that are counted for financial aid purposes (from about $45,000 to about $6,000 for the average family). Therefore, many more people are going to have to answer questions about assets. This is the opposite of simplification. That policy also makes it harder for families to save for their other kids’ college and to maintain emergency savings.
A lot of colleges and high schools offer ‘FAFSA completion night’, where they help students fill out the FAFSA
It would be interesting to know how many students don’t fill out the FAFSA because parents won’t cooperate and provide financial information
I am surprised that high school students are asked to fill out the FAFSA. I never expected that my son would fill his out, because I knew he would not be able to complete it given it requires information about my finances that he would not be able to provide. I guess I am out of the loop as to what is going on at high schools these days, since we returned to homeschooling during the high school years. And the FAFSA did not even exist when I headed to college (I know my parents filled out something because we were poor enough for me to qualify for a Pell Grant at that time.)
What I have read a lot in here is how some parents won’t fill out these FAFSA forms for their students, so I am all for finding a way to help these students. However, as long as the financial aid determinations are based on the parents’ income and tax returns, I am not sure what can be done short of bypassing the parents altogether. Unless we decided that all college students, regardless of income and dependent/independent status, get a certain dollar amount to use towards college.
Yes, the FAFSA completion assistance night at our high school includes the parents and their financial information.
The parents can’t get bypassed because student and parent need to provide information and sign.
These programs aim to make it easier for more students to complete a FAFSA, but if parents don’t cooperate it doesn’t help the students.