For the last 32 years, high school seniors applying to college have been filling out the FAFSA, a financial aid form provided by the federal government that helps students pay for college. However, this year, the form has undergone some dramatic changes which Galileo seniors have seen as both positive and negative.
While Galileo seniors were anticipating the FAFSA form being open in October, the form was not released until late December. Senior Dawit B. said, “I was anxiously waiting for the form to be released because it was released in October for the previous versions. I just wanted to fill the form out and get it done with.”
As for the changes to the FAFSA form, students filling out their FAFSA now only have to answer 36 questions, compared to the previous iterations, which had over 100 questions. In addition, the FAFSA increased the number of college slots a student can put down from 10 to 20.
Additionally, according to the FAFSA website, the federal government has streamlined the tax information process with the inclusion of the Direct Data Exchange tool which allows families to gather all their IRS documents online. The Direct Data Exchange tool can fill
in questions automatically with the tax information from the IRS, but families must give their consent to use the tool. The Pell Grant will also be expanded to include more students, and there are now separate accounts for the student and parent and their own sections to fill out respectively.
As students have now begun to fill out the FAFSA, there have been a variety of opinions about it. Senior Hiyab T. had an overall positive opinion of FAFSA saying, “Very easy to complete and took like 40 minutes to complete. I thought I would receive an email about the estimated aid I would get but I still haven’t received it yet. Overall, it was good but it takes time for them to get back to you.”
On the other hand, Dawit’s experience with FAFSA was mediocre, stating, “The FAFSA was short in questions but the wait time is insane and the entire site is laggy. I know the website has a lot of people on it, but it’s so unmanaged, slow, and hectic if you mess anything up.”
Some students however had a plethora of issues to deal with on the form. Senior Jaden L. stated, “The site was extremely buggy with it crashing at times which made me lose progress and I had to restart a couple of pages back. The form also kept saying I didn’t fill out certain questions when I did, and I had to keep on reloading the website which was already slow enough as it is.”’
While the website has its issues with the updates and release of new features, JCYC College Advisor, Kristin Tatum, still advises students to apply for financial aid because of the assistance it offers to students in pursuit of higher education. Varying on income, students can receive up to $9500 at a city college, $13,000 at a state university, or $32,000 at a UC.
Kristin says, “The FAFSA and Dream Act makes it possible for many Galileo students to attend college. I strongly encourage everybody to fill it out.”
