Significantly fewer students have completed the FAFSA while colleges try to manage fallout

Lily Altavena, Detroit Free Press
·5 min read
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About a quarter of Michigan's high school seniors have completed the federal FAFSA form, the ticket to receiving federal aid for higher education, compared with nearly 40% at this time in 2023, according to federal data.

The lagging completion numbers are partly due to a nearly three-month delay to roll out the new version of the form for students bound for higher education, according to Diann Cosme, director of MI Student Aid within the newly created Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP).

The FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, is one of the most crucial steps for students to qualify for federal grants and other types of aid, including student loans to pay for college, graduate school and other forms of higher education, such as trade school. The federal government launched the new FAFSA form late in December, two months after families can typically start to access the form.

The delays mean far fewer students this year have completed the form. Universities are concerned and taking action to help students through the delays and other technical issues, pushing back enrollment deadlines. Students and parents are worried they might not be able to complete it in time to get aid to start or finish their college careers. Nationally, the rollout has been declared a mess by national student aid advocates and members of Congress.

And delays and other processing issues hit low-income students, who rely on aid to enroll in higher education, harder.

Zariea Williams, college adviser at Woodhaven High School in Brownstown Township, said seniors have a big decision ahead of them, and affordability is a big component of making that decision. Federal data estimates that about 45% to 49% of seniors at the Woodhaven-Brownstown School District have completed the FAFSA, which is more than the state's completion rate but behind the rate from this time last year, when the estimate was 60% to 64%.

"The anxiety is that they won't get their financial aid in time for them to make a logical decision about where they're going to head off," Williams said. "It's a pretty big decision to be making without seeing a financial aid package."

Why is the FAFSA different?

This year the federal Department of Education unveiled a new simplified version of the form. One of the main changes is that the department will use data about income directly from the IRS rather than have students and families enter that information in to help determine eligibility for grants and aid.

One potential hurdle to clear: Families have to consent to share that information, which isn't always easy, said Ashton Niedzwiecki, a financial aid officer at Wayne State University.

The new form also has far fewer questions than previous versions.

How are students and families affected?

Wayne State financial aid officers and Tanya Aho, postsecondary program director for the Urban Neighborhood Initiatives based in Detroit, said students with parents who are undocumented or not a U.S. citizen are facing significant challenges trying to complete the form because they lack a Social Security number.

For months, students with parents without a Social Security number weren't able to complete the form due to an issue with the new form. The Department of Education built a workaround for students, but the workaround is complicated, said Aho: Students have to print out an attestation form, sign up and send it to the education department in a process that takes 10 to 15 days.

Some students aren't as motivated to attend college as others, and for those on the fence, a complex process may push them to decide against attending, shutting a door that should be open to them, said Aho, who works primarily with students in southwest Detroit.

"Some of them are on the fence, like, 'I don't know if I want to go to college,' but I always kind of encourage all my students to fill out the FAFSA just so that you can decide later," she said. "But for those youth on the fence, a lot of them have given up; it just seems like too much trouble."

Students who have completed the form may also see delays by universities processing them, causing headaches for students feeling uncertainty about aid packages.

Are schools helping families with delays?

The state this year changed its deadline to July 1 for students to submit this year's FAFSA for eligibility for state scholarships, including the Michigan Competitive Scholarship, based on financial need and merit.

Wayne State is extending many of its scholarship deadlines and enrollment deposit deadlines to help as many students and prospective students as possible complete the FAFSA, Niedzwiecki said.

"We want to make sure that students are still able to access that aid that is on the institutional side on the Wayne State side, without them being punished for delays that are being caused by the Department of Education," he said.

Major Michigan colleges making changes this year include:

How many students in Michigan go to college?

About 53% of Michigan's 2023 high school graduates enrolled in two- or four-year institutions within six months of graduating. White students enrolled at a higher rate than Black and Latino students, with 56% of white students enrolling compared with 39% of Black students and 45% of Latino students, according to state data.

Contact Lily Altavena: laltavena@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Fewer Michigan students have completed FAFSA due to form fiasco