May, 2024
Washington — Here is a critical analysis that will seem familiar to those struggling with a FAFSA student financial aid application form:
Complicated application process
Most are aware that the ... applications are pretty confusing and complicated. The forms try to cover every conceivable case, making them extremely long and complex.
Depending on what the prospective student indicated on the initial forms, supplementary sheets might have to be filled out to provide further information. Because of this, most applicants need an average of 5 hours to complete the ... application and 99% of them arrive incomplete....
[The application] is heavily criticized because the forms can be difficult to understand and ... there are slow processing times due to a large volume of applications. [Emphasis added]
The above quotation is not a critique of FAFSA, however, but of the application for Germany's grant and loan program known as Bafög. Clearly, the U.S. Department of Education's application form troubles are not unique.
But our U.S. application system has been further complicated by an attempt to simplify it, without fully appreciating how fraught that might be from both substantive and procedural standpoints. Simplification introduces inequities. Procedurally the changes are proving to be a nightmare.
Some of us have been advocating for years that the whole federal student aid system needs fundamental overhaul, to rethink the role of states and institutions, to build redundancy into higher education access, and to question the very purpose and existence of the FAFSA monster that is now devouring its creators.