Since the first delay in the rollout of the new FAFSA online system in December 2023 dozens of colleges have been experiencing decreased enrollment especially among incoming freshmen. Nine months after the Department of Education was supposed to deploy a completely transformed Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to serve as a better and faster financial aid portal, millions of students and families in need of financial assistance have instead been locked out of the system.
Many are still struggling to have their FAFSA form processed because the portal launched in March by the Department of Education has been dealing with long call lines. Apparently the transformational change promised by the overhauled FAFSA system is up to this day, full of unresolved problems as a result of technical glitches.
Higher Level Education Institutions Unable to Send Out Packages to Incoming Freshmen Students
The Department of Education previously announced that the online FAFSA portal is already available. Yet The National Association of Student Financial Aid (NASFA) revealed that up to this day, the bungled processes and unresolved issues have prevented higher level education institutions from sending financial aid packages to applicants.
Education Department Officials claim they’ve already processed 14.2 million financial aid applications FAFSAs, which had brought down the backlogs to only 2.8% from last year. However, the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) states that completion falloff is actually greater at nearly 10% of the more than 17 million of the students using FAFSA.
NASFA CEO Beth Maglione is urging the DepEd to have the system completely fixed and thoroughly tested from end to end in time for the next academic year. After all, the FAFSA Simplification Act passed by Congress in 2020 intended to make it easier and faster for students and families to receive the financial assistance they need.