Another FAFSA glitch prevents students from receiving financial aid offers

DES MOINES, Iowa (WHO) — Since this year’s application, called “A Better 2024-25 FAFSA Form,” was rolled out, it has caused problems for students nationwide.

While changes were made to make the application process easier , the opposite took place. Des Moines students faced issues with filling out the form from the very beginning. And then colleges were delayed in receiving FAFSA information . Now, it’s changing some students’ plans for the future.

A post-secondary counselor at Lincoln High School, Julia Minnehan, said many students are now taking a gap year because of the FAFSA fiasco.

“I hate that that’s the reason that they want to do that [take a gap year], like it’s just so unfair. So, we’re hoping we can figure out a good way to support students and still get it filled out so that if they do want to go to college, they can go and the finances aren’t a barrier,” she said.

According to Minnehan, in previous years, the state frequently notified schools how many of its students filled out the FAFSA. She typically starts receiving these notifications in October, which helps her promote the form to students and see who may need help with it. During this time last year, 60% of Lincoln High School seniors filled out the FAFSA.

This year, Minnehan received the first notification from the state just last week, and only 17% of students filled out the form. But, students who did fill out the application don’t have the best experiences to share.

Sydney Parker is a senior at Lincoln who filled out the new FAFSA application. She watched her two older brothers fill out the FAFSA and felt confident with the process going into her senior year of high school. However, that quickly changed with the rollout of the new FAFSA application and the setbacks it caused.

“We thought we’d get our financial aid offer sooner, we didn’t get it. I got mine yesterday, literally. So it’s really been even a question if I can even go to college with the financial situation,” said Sydney.

Other seniors like Minhuyen Vo are still waiting. Minhuyen said despite trying to get everything done early, she was faced with unforeseen hindrances.

“Last week, I got it back that it was processed and received, and then later I found out that I cannot get my financial aid offer because I was missing forms from the FAFSA, which was confusing to me,” she said.

Minnehan said that several students also have missing information on their FAFSA applications, which isn’t a student mistake but another glitch in the system. She was told students need to make corrections for the issues to be resolved.

However, those corrections won’t be available for another two weeks, which is past the traditional May 1st deadline, and that’s only if the Department of Education’s timeline is correct, and that hasn’t been the case many times this past year.

While several colleges have pushed the May 1st deadline back to help students, Minnehan said Lincoln seniors still graduate in May and if they need help after graduation, it becomes harder to access counselors.

On top of affecting high school seniors, this is also impacting returning college students. One student at the University of Iowa received an email from the school saying that their FAFSA needed to be reprocessed and the school didn’t need any action from the student.

And this student isn’t alone. The Department of Education announced that 20% of all FAFSA applications will need to be reprocessed, further delaying students from receiving their financial aid offers.

Despite the chaos caused by the new form, Minnehan is hopeful that next year’s process will run smoother if the Department releases the application on October 1st, as they plan to.

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