FAFSA delays leave UND's first-generation, Pell Grant students in the lurch

Apr. 13—GRAND FORKS — Bryce Kringstad grew up watching prospective pilots at UND perform flight maneuvers over the flatlands of the Red River Valley, making lazy circles over the fields surrounding Grand Forks International Airport as they practiced takeoffs and landings.

The Grafton High School senior liked watching them so much he decided he wanted to become a pilot himself; he applied and was accepted into the commercial aviation program at UND.

But for the moment, Kringstad's plans have been grounded, as he waits alongside millions of other students nationwide to receive his long-delayed financial aid award.

"Just because of how expensive my program is, I want to know how this is going to play out," he said. "If I don't have enough, I'd like to know now."

The botched rollout of what was supposed to be a new, simplified form for the Free Application for Student Aid — FAFSA for short — has become a national issue, with lawmakers on Capitol Hill

assailing the Education Department this week

for the months of delays, glitches and billion-dollar miscalculations.

As the release of students' financial data to colleges — and colleges' issuing of financial aid awards to students — gets pushed back further and further, prospective and current first-generation and lower-income students are grappling with decisions about their financial and educational future with limited data.

UND has typically issued financial aid awards in March, said Janelle Kilgore, UND's vice provost for strategic enrollment management.

"We want to take action, but we just can't. We don't have the information," Kilgore said. "We know these are important decisions."

UND has received financial information for more than 8,000 students since March, Kilgore said, but thousands of those forms likely contain incorrect information. The Education Department reported Tuesday that approximately 30% of known FAFSA applications are affected by known processing or data errors.

Kilgore said the university is now aiming to send out award letters in early May, once the federal government identifies the botched financial information and updates it.

Students like Kringstad, who would be the first in his family to attend college, will have to decide whether to endure the wait.

Earlier this month, he said he had set a loose deadline of mid to late April to decide whether to enroll at UND in the fall or instead enroll in a two-year college like Northland Community and Technical College, where he was also accepted. He also was considering taking a gap year.

"There is concern about potentially losing those students, that they might go into the workforce and take that gap year," Kilgore said.

Derek Sporbert, who directs a group of federally-funded initiatives for first-generation and Pell Grant-eligible students known as TRIO, is particularly concerned about students in his programs who consider a gap year. He said many end up not going to college at all.

Kringstad is also considering giving up commercial aviation as a major, since students have to pay flight costs out of pocket. He is concerned about committing to the extra cost without knowing how much of his base tuition will be covered.

His college advisers have suggested he consider air traffic management or something in health care, since he works in a nursing home right now.

"They're saying look at other majors, which I don't really want to do, but it would be more financial security," Kringstad said. "It'd be a lot cheaper, for sure."

'Left in limbo'

The FAFSA rollout is causing problems for returning students too.

Austin Null, a junior studying information systems, is a Pell Grant recipient and the first in his family to go to college. A significant portion of his tuition and housing is paid for via Pell Grant and scholarships he qualifies for with the financial information from his FAFSA.

Returning UND students normally don't get their updated financial aid offers until June 1. But Null is unsure whether his form has been processed correctly.

He said every time he's attempted to verify his tax information he's gotten an error message and had the form reset on him. About two-thirds of the FAFSA forms with potential processing errors require corrected tax information, according to the Education Department.

This happened to him over and over until he decided to call the FAFSA help line — except he couldn't get anybody on the line. His online help query also went unanswered, except for a boilerplate response from the Federal Student Aid Information Center in February.

"We're seeing a lot of frustration where parents and students and teachers and communities were being told for months and months to apply early and now they're hearing nothing at all," Sporbert said.

Null already has a work-study job to help cover his living expenses, and worries about trying to find the money to pay for his tuition next semester without his financial award.

"The whole situation with FAFSA is just more stress on top of staying on top of school," he said. "The idea of having to pay for all of that as a Pell Grant student, it's just a lot of pressure."

He's considered taking the fall semester off, but he's already signed off on a housing contract with the university that begins in June, since he planned on working in Grand Forks this summer. Attempting to back out of that contract now would cost him hundreds of dollars.

Sporbert said the burden of the FAFSA delays are falling hardest on Pell-eligible students like Null.

"They're left in limbo," he said. "Every college kid's decision is based off what their award is."