Many students need our help in applying for financial aid
It’s the time of year when adults in higher education start waking up in the morning with persistent thoughts of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
“Fill out your FAFSA” is a winter tradition that affects nearly all adults with kids who will start or continue their college studies in the fall. The dreaded form must be filled out in order to qualify for financial aid to attend college — both federal loans and grants, and, in some states, scholarships and other forms of cash assistance.
Did I say “affects”? I meant the FAFSA “afflicts.”
It causes special mental and emotional pain in millions of people across the country as it confounds students and parents with no college-going experience.
Last year, the National Center for Education Statistics released an updated brief detailing the reasons why students failed to fill out their FAFSA.
Many students simply thought they could afford college without financial aid or (in nearly the same numbers) thought they or their families wouldn’t qualify for it.
Other students said they didn’t want to take on student loan debt, didn’t know they were eligible to apply for aid, didn’t understand how to fill out the FAFSA or had decided they weren’t going to college.
A student who would be the first in his or her family to attend college may genuinely have not heard of the FAFSA if, for instance, they attend a lowperforming school where college matriculation is not something a critical mass aspires to.
Or perhaps they attend a school where there are too few guidance counselors trained to spot students who could benefit, but just need an extra push.
For some students — sometimes the likeliest to do well in college and the likeliest to get free money to attend — they’re not wrong about what a Herculean task it is. Not at all.
Their time and effort are not a middle-class person’s time and work.
A first-generation college student may have parents who are not in their lives and have caretakers who are not comfortable entering their IRS information into the form for their student. Or their parents have irregular, low-income work and have not filled out their taxes in several years. They may even be homeless and not have an address to start with.
Just the emotional exertion required to have conversations about money for college with family is intense, making this the very point at which many potential first-generation college students figure it’s not worth it — when it really is.
These hurdles can be jumped with the help of an advocate who could offer advice for overcoming such barriers — if such an advocate were available.
Filling out the FAFSA is a pain, but doable (there are resources on the web for figuring it out).
It’s doable even if students have been out of school for a while or even if students aren’t great scholars. It’s doable and worth trying even if a student’s family makes up to $200,000 per year.
Ironically, the students who are likeliest to qualify for grants, scholarships or loans — low-income students who would be the first to attend college — are the ones who might see the FAFSA as an insurmountable barrier to higher education.
According to the most recent data, 34% of Hispanic and 27% of black students said that they didn’t complete a FAFSA because they didn’t have enough information.
Most of them probably just needed someone college-educated, with a computer and internet connection, to get them on a path to more options in life.
Could that someone perhaps be you?