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  • Jun 25

    FAFSA Changes Promise Simplification

    Author: Michael Whitlow

    Where have we heard this before?  Government should communicate in plain English.  The rules are too complicated.  The forms are too long. Line A contradicts line H.

    FAFSA Form

    FAFSA Form

    FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is a rite of passage for college students and their parents, and being one who has not helped shepherd our students through the process at all (thank God for my wife), I am uniquely qualified to comment on recent efforts to simplify the process.  I have one piece of advice for the Obama administration as it sets off down this campaign-promised path of simplification.  Make FAFSA so simple that even a dad will do the paperwork.

    Granted, like so many other things government, the current form has to keep a delicate balance among privacy, completeness and use of existing technology to make the filing easier.  Additionally, the Feds have to provide a way for colleges and universities to continue to use the forms for their purposes, trusting in the validity of the information.  Some of the changes proposed are no brainers - why ask independent or married students about their parents, for instance?  Others are complicated and potentially difficult to implement, but are common sense answers that just demand some action from those in power - like being able to import IRS information into the form.

    Critics have argued that many students just can’t or won’t put up with the complexity of this process and that it dissuades qualified students by the thousands.  And the FAFSA form, online or paper, is not the only challenge. There is an 8-page worksheet that you might complete before tackling FAFSA, for instance.  Obviously, if these forms and this process are roadblocks to education, they limit our ability to regain our educational standing in the world.

    Over 9 million students complete the form every academic year, and with some simple multiplication, I’d hazard a guess that moms and students spend at least 30 million hours on the effort.  Think of the world-changing work they could be doing instead of filling out the FAFSA!

    The other piece of this puzzle is the public education effort that should be undertaken to find those students who have fallen by the wayside and bring them back to the system.  While many local and state educational institutions and systems are doing their best, the addition of the federal “I’m Going” campaign this year can be instrumental in encouraging students.  The expansion of this effort into the social networking realm should be a top priority for the U.S. Department of Education as it seeks a return on its $80 billion investment in student aid of all types.

    There are other complicating factors, of course.  Lots of state aid programs need volumes of good information in order to make sure that students who are eligible for financial aid get that aid.  One expert on the subject is Mark Kantrowitz, who runs Finaid.org, was quoted as writing, ”The current proposals cut one page from the six page form by prefilling with income tax return data. But to have a meaningful impact on application rates it is necessary to fit the FAFSA on a postcard. That means simplifying the formula, not just the form.”

    A postcard? That would be simplification even a dad could love!

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