Eric Zuniga, Campus Carrier news editor

The opening of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) will be delayed yet again this year. The Department of Education is promising that the form will be available to the public on or before Dec. 1, two months later than its usual Oct. 1 opening date.

After last year’s shaky launch of an entirely overhauled FAFSA form, the Department of Education is now conducting testing of the form with limited groups of students. The testing is meant to help the department iron out bugs before the public launch.

“If you have to ask us about an Oct. 1 launch of something that’s still not really great or a Dec. 1 launch of something that works from day one, we all choose December,” Vice President of Enrollment Management Andrew Bressette said. “That’s why they delayed — it’s to say we think we can get all the issues fixed by December.”

The testing is being conducted in three phases, starting with 600 students and increasing to tens of thousands as the FAFSA nears its launch date. After the first phase of testing earlier this month, the Department of Education said most forms were submitted successfully and no major bugs were found.

“They’re doing great work so far with that and they’ve been very transparent with schools and the general public,” Director of Financial Aid Noemi Sarrion said. “We are very confident that it’s going to be much better this year.”

Though the FAFSA will be launching later than usual, Berry’s priority deadlines for filing the form will remain unchanged. Returning students should submit their application by Feb. 15 for maximum aid consideration. 

“February is when we advertise the open positions in signature programs,” Sarrion said. “At that point is when we ask, if you file your FAFSA before Feb. 15, then we can make sure that we qualify you for these openings.”

The delayed launch means that Berry will likely send its first aid offers to prospective students a month later than usual. The college is already communicating with new students about the FAFSA, according to Bressette. 

“We are already messaging them to say, ‘Hey, you may have heard about the FAFSA issues last year. They’re working hard to resolve those,’” Bressette said. “Kind of letting them know Dec. 1 is when we think it’ll launch. We’ve updated the Berry.edu FAFSA page — there’s a set of six steps the Department of Education said you can do now so you’re ready for Dec. 1.”

Students are advised to make sure they and their parents can log in to their Federal Student Aid account before the form opens. They should also make sure that their 2023 tax return has been filed with the IRS. 

Although the positive results of the FAFSA testing is raising hopes for a smoother launch, Bressette said that Berry is prepared to handle a shaky roll-out. The college can issue official aid offers based on the results of an estimator tool on the Education Department’s website — an option that was developed during last year’s bungled FAFSA launch.

“There was a lot of programming that took place last year to be able to gather and turn that information into a financial aid award, so all that programming basically just needed a few minor updates,” Bressette said. “We are locked and loaded in a real way. I hope we don’t have to go there.”

The Financial Aid Office is already preparing for the FAFSA launch by updating its software and reviewing student aid eligibility. 

“We have to do a holistic review for each student that is here at Berry, but luckily we have some IT resources that help us with that,” Assistant Director of Financial Aid Maggie Farmer said. “There’s a lot of stuff that we start doing now to make sure, ‘is our software upgraded and ready to receive this?’”

The FAFSA received an overhaul last year as a result of legislation passed by Congress in 2020. The changes were intended to make college more accessible for lower-income students. Pell Grant eligibility was expanded and a new Student Aid Index (SAI) designed to more accurately reflect financial need was introduced. The Education Department also trimmed the form down to 36 questions from the old form’s 108 and allowed automatic entry of tax information from the IRS. 

The new form’s launch last year was plagued by technical problems and delays, however. While the form officially opened on Dec. 31, it was only available at limited times of day until the first week of January. Because of numerous errors in the formula that calculates aid eligibility, colleges did not receive students’ results until March. 

On the new form, parents and other contributors must fill out a section on their own, separately from their student. Some dependent students had problems entering their parents’ information.

 “I was on more Zoom calls and meetings with students about that being an issue, and it was for very simple reasons,” Farmer said. “You’re a student, you’re here on campus and you’re trying to work with your parent that’s at home to file this document, so it’s very tricky there.”

Those who had difficulties submitting the form faced little support from the Education Department. According to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), four million of the 5.4 million calls made to the department went unanswered during the form’s launch.

Students whose parents do not have Social Security numbers were not able to submit the FAFSA at all — a glitch that predominantly affected applicants with undocumented parents. These students were required to submit a paper version of the form. The Education Department has still not yet processed these students’ applications.

“We recently had a couple of families in the office, and we’ve been there calling the Department of Education with them present and kind of resolving the issue,” Sarrion said. “Paper has not been a priority for the Department of Education. They are delayed and we’re still working with [last year’s] records.”

The bungled launch of the new form has affected colleges across the country. The GAO investigation found that FAFSA submissions were down 3% over the prior year, with the biggest drop occurring among families with annual income below $48,000. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, freshman enrollment at colleges dropped by 5% this year, the first decline since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Berry was not as affected by the FAFSA difficulties as other schools, which Bressette said is the result of the college’s proactive approach to the launch. 

“Being early about communicating around the issue, being really early to try and be on the side of the families to help them solve the issue — that really helped set us apart,” Bressette said. “I think our proactive approach served us better than we would have anticipated.”

This year, Berry came close to its enrollment goal of 620 freshmen, admitting 616. Despite the dip in FAFSA submissions among lower-income students, the number of Pell Grant-eligible students increased to 37%. Students of color make up 32% of the freshman class — a record high number for Berry. 

“We have a great group of students that I think met most of our goals,” Bressette said. 

Bressette said that Berry will be making efforts to communicate with applicants from last year who did not end up enrolling at any college. 

“We are planning some outreach and communication to students who may not have enrolled to see if they’re still interested in coming to Berry,” Bressette said. “And maybe with a simpler FAFSA form that really works, we can help a few of them.”

For current students, the Financial Aid Office will host a session about the FAFSA on Nov. 1 in the library. Students who need help filing the form or have questions about their financial aid are encouraged to make an appointment with a financial aid counselor.