It’s been a year of missteps, miscalculations, confusion, delays, glitches, and frustration after the botched launch of the simplified FAFSA, which has prevented financial aid packages from being awarded to students with ample time to make plans for their future.
Last week, Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel A. Cardona released a letter to Federal Student Aid (FSA) staff which acknowledged the errors made and a need for departmental modernization, which he outlined in an eight-point plan.
“Changes are needed to make sure students, borrowers, and families have a better user experience with FSA,” Cardona wrote. “These efforts include changes in leadership, boosting oversight and accountability, and engaging a variety of stakeholders so that FSA works best for our most important stakeholders — students and families.”
Dr. Katharine Meyer, fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonprofit Brookings Institution.
“Filing is down across the country,” said Dr. Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonprofit Brookings Institution. “While nationally, FAFSA completions are down about 14% from last year, completions are down 16.5% for schools with a higher share of minoritized students. We can expect that to translate into fewer students enrolling in college this fall.”
Trust needs to be rebuilt between the FSA, institutions, families and students they serve, said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).
“Much of the chaos with this year’s FAFSA rollout could have been minimized – although not entirely avoided – if there had been more open communication from the ED to the financial aid community,” said Desjean. “However, ED chose to prioritize public relations over transparency and often buried the real news in celebratory updates that often downplayed the severity of the situation and left key questions unanswered.”
