WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal FAFSA form to apply for college financial aid opened Thursday to high school seniors across the country, a year after a disastrous rollout by the Biden administration delayed the application for months.
After weeks of testing, the Department of Education said there were no major problems with the online form. The opening to the public will come later than the conventional start date of October 1st, but much earlier than last year at the end of January. The department promised this year’s form by December 1st.
“After months of hard work and much feedback from students, schools and other stakeholders, we can say with confidence that the FAFSA is working and will serve as a gateway to college access and affordability for millions of students,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Thursday.
In four rounds of testing, more than 140,000 students submitted the form and their information was sent to more than 5,200 colleges, the department said.
A revision last year was intended to simplify the notoriously elaborate form, but technical problems prevented students from submitting forms or botched the calculations.
The federal government uses students’ applications to determine whether they are eligible for financial aid, and colleges and states apply them to award their own scholarships. The delays left students wondering how much financial aid they would be able to receive, a crucial factor for many families.
Advocates say frustration likely led thousands of students to give up on college altogether. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, U.S. colleges saw a 5% decline in undergraduate enrollment this fall compared to last year, and the decline was even more pronounced at colleges with enormous numbers of low-income students.
The Education Department said it has fixed last year’s problems and hired an additional 700 call center workers to facilitate families if they have problems submitting the form.
This week, the Senate and House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation requiring the Department of Education to make the FAFSA available no later than October 1st.
The Biden administration drew bipartisan scorn for its handling of the update, with Republicans accusing the administration of focusing on student loan cancellations at the expense of the FAFSA form.
The revision came after Congress passed a law in 2020 to simplify the form. The Education Department was ordered to reduce the number of questions from over 100 to about 40 and change the formula to extend facilitate to more students.
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