‘Down for maintenance’ is what students have been receiving from the FAFSA page since late December when it opened for its ‘soft launch’, debuting its new form. The form must shut down once a glitch is found, making it difficult for students, especially in late December and early January, to access it.
“I felt like this year it was easier, although it seemed a little tricky because I went to fill it out earlier, but it wasn’t available,” Lola Green, a fourth-year student, and a Sociology Major said. “I was a little confused.”
The form was marketed as being easier for students to fill out along with being more streamlined and accessible for students to get more aid.
“I think it was pretty simple,” Meg Brown, a third-year student and a Forestry Major said. “Especially because a lot of the information transferred over from last year. It took me thirty minutes maximum.”
Originally, the U.S. Department of Education was going to send out FAFSA information from students in late January, but that has been pushed back to mid-March. This could impact students’ decisions for next year, especially regarding on-campus housing.
“I think it will affect my housing decisions especially because I’m not entirely sure yet and then also it’s a hard surface to use,” Cambree Miller, a first-year student and a Theater major said. “I feel like they always lose my stuff, or I have to redo things and that makes me scared of having to take out loans.”
While this form may seem new to students, it has been in preparation for a couple of years before launching last December.
“Really, the genesis of the whole thing is the FAFSA Simplification Act,” Randi Croyle, the Director of Financial Aid at the University of Idaho said. “The big changes are for 2024-2025. It’s got less questions, it’s easier for students, and it automatically connects all the data, so that’s pretty cool.”
The Financial Aid Department at UI has been working on these changes and has been trying to make the transition between the old and new forms easier for students, but there are many issues to work out with the FAFSA site according to Croyle.
“However, to get there, there’s been a lot of programming requirements,” Croyle said. “All of the data from student’s applications come to us in different tables in our student information system. So, they have been programming to make it all work and make it better for students and families. And then we have to program to digest that information. That’s what’s really been going on and we have been working on all of this for a really long time.”
Award letters for students have been delayed too and could raise concerns for incoming students.
“Normally we are sending out award letters around the first week of February to our incoming class,” Croyle said. “We would have awarded letters out to our incoming Freshman by now. We won’t even have FAFSA data until mid-March. We, very likely, won’t have award
letters out to that class until sometime in April. It takes us a little longer to get continuing students’ awards out.”
For incoming students, the University has pushed their acceptance times to allow students to have time to look over their awards.
“Normally we ask students to accept their scholarships [from the department] by May 1,” Croyle said. “We have extended that to June. We also historically have had on-time dates for certain smaller packaging processes that we have, but we’ve taken those away.”
The Financial Aid office also has been working on a new site that will allow students to view potential aid that they might get from the U.S. Department of Education.
“We let students know what their admission-based scholarships are going to be for their offer for admission,” Croyle said. “We are also advertising today, our net price calculator. Where students can go in and if they have already filed their FAFSA, they can file their student aid index and some other information and can get a pretty good idea of their aid and other things that they will qualify for. If they don’t have their student aid index, they can answer some questions and they can get a pretty good estimate of what they might qualify for.”
There is a lot of reassurance from the University’s financial aid department for any student concerned about their aid package being delayed.
“Fill out the FAFSA,” Croyle said. “It’s later, but it’s easier. If you’re really concerned, then you can use the student net price calculator. If you have questions about that, come talk to us because that’s a pretty good estimate. We’ve got some really hardworking, brilliant people on our team. And this is the biggest regulatory change that I’ve seen. It’s a really big change, and they’re in good hands.”
When asked if the FAFSA’s original time frame in previous years will be back to normal next year, Croyle said, “Yes, this [year] is the heavy lift.”
For any questions, students can visit the Financial Aid Department’s website.
Andrea Roberts can be reached at [email protected]