The delay in the launch of the new 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is causing considerable tumult and frustration on campuses and creating confusion for many students and families.
 
“[It is] highly unfortunate that colleges and universities are in this situation,” said Jeff Docking, president of Adrian College in Michigan.  “If we’re talking about making college more affordable, [have] easier entry, and have families knowing what kind of support they're going to get, in an era when the number of 18-year-olds graduating high school is down in most places in the country, this is not acceptable to us.”
 
Dan Myers, president of Misericordia University in Pennsylvania, said the delay disproportionately impacts families with greater need, relative to those who do not expect to receive need-based aid, and was a factor in his university’s decision to push out as much award information as it could early in the process.
 
While institutions are taking different approaches to navigating this delay, what is consistent is the desire to provide as much information as possible to current and prospective students and their families as they make their college-going decisions.
 
In addition to Docking and Myers, NAICU’s Washington Update interviewed Ann McElaney-Johnson, president of Mount Saint Mary’s University (MSMU) in California. In thinking about how best to navigate the delay, all three presidents said their staff had run preemptive analyses of how the FAFSA changes would impact their students and all have used the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrator's (NASFAA) Student Aid Index (SAI) Modeling Tool.
 
Misericordia and MSMU said the tool’s output has been somewhat helpful in making projections to changes in their respective financial aid packages.  However, Adrian determined that the tool was not producing accurate enough figures for its analysis. As a result, Adrian staff are asking parents of prospective students to fill out the Department of Education’s SAI Estimator Tool and send the results back to the college. Adrian then uses those results to estimate the amount of need-based aid it can tell families they might get. Since Michigan also uses FAFSA data to determine state-based aid, the institution is confident it can rely on the federal SAI estimate to give families a fairly full picture of the federal, state, and institutional aid available to them.
 
MSMU and Adrian indicated that they have already been making non-need-based awards.  Similarly, Misericordia has tilted its award matrix to rely more heavily on academic ability/achievement information to get financial aid out to families earlier. Additionally, MSMU included awards based on other circumstances, such as its housing grant, and awards based on academic major and geography. The institution also estimates Pell and other state grants based on national consumer household data that an outside vendor provides.
 
“We have launched an extensive campaign to our inquiries laying out likely awards and financing opportunities through our affordability campaign (email, web and print),” said McElaney-Johnson. “We have also communicated the differences between the old and new FAFSA and how to navigate the change for both our prospective and current students.”
 
The three schools have delayed awarding need-based aid until they receive official FAFSA information.
 
All three presidents indicated that they are confident in their projections and do not anticipate any significant swings in funding, but should the situation arise, they will review any gaps in estimated awards on a case-by-case basis and work with families to the best of their ability to address the differential. McElaney-Johnson, for example, noted that she expects to have to fill in the gaps experienced by current students who lose some or all their Pell Grant eligibility.
 
However, the institutions’ efforts to provide assurances to families regarding financial aid decisions does not lessen the impact the delays are having on all involved. Myers summed up the frustrations this way. “The delay is difficult for three primary reasons. First, it is difficult for families, given that they will have a much shorter window to fulfill requirements, file information, and make a complex family and life decision. Given the economic challenges families face, many will not be able to decide where to attend until they have full information—not just about aid from the institutions in question, but also Pell Grants, state aid, and loans.    
 
“Second, the delay is piling up a huge workload, both for the government side and the college side, in a very compressed period of time. The timeline after December 31 is not yet clear and there is worry that all of this will continue to become more compressed with further processing delays.  
 
“Third, the later the process runs, the less time colleges have for planning for the fall, producing efficiency in their curricular offerings, hiring faculty for the necessary sections, and adjusting budgets for enrollments, given that recruitment and retention will both be much harder to predict. At a time when colleges and universities are under serious financial stress, the inability to plan and align resources adequately exacerbates these problems.”
 
Overall, the three presidents believe that the final FAFSA will lead them to have to make only modest changes to their anticipated award packages but caveat that sentiment by acknowledging that uncertainty will remain until the FAFSA officially launches.
 
NAICU is in regular contact with the Department of Education on its implementation efforts and will continue to provide updates on developments throughout the upcoming transition.