As federal education officials continue to clean up after the botched rollout of a new financial aid application, many college-bound students in Tarrant County are still struggling to complete the form.
But they don’t have to do it on their own. School districts and education advocacy groups in the Fort Worth area scrambled to organize help for students who weren’t able to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, during the regular school year.
FAFSA filings in districts across Texas, including in Tarrant County, dropped off sharply this year. In a typical year, such a decline would be a sign that fewer students plan to go to college, since nearly all college-bound students submit the form during the school year, while they have easy access to help from school counselors.
But this year has been anything but typical. The newly redesigned form was released months later than usual, and even then, technical glitches kept many students from filing. College readiness officials say they’re still working with many recent graduates who plan to go to college but haven’t been able to complete their financial aid applications because of all the problems with this year’s form. Many are cautiously optimistic that they’ll be able to keep those students’ college dreams from being derailed, despite the roadblocks.
“I do think we’re going to get there at the end,” said Jason Titus, managing director of programs for the T3 Partnership.
Redesigned FAFSA is simpler for some, unusable for others
The U.S. Department of Education embarked on a redesign of the FAFSA after Congress ordered the agency in 2020 to make the form easier for families to fill out. Agency officials say the new form is simpler, paring questions down to fewer than 20 instead of more than 100.
But the rollout of the new form has been rocky. Students didn’t get access to the form until late December, about three months later than usual, leaving students, families and high school counselors with less time to fill it out. And even after families got access to the application, technical glitches kept many from being able to complete it. Students whose parents are undocumented had particular challenges because a technical issue made it impossible for parents without Social Security numbers to list themselves as contributors.
Some of those challenges have since been resolved. But others haven’t. In mid June, education officials announced that colleges wouldn’t be able to submit batch corrections until the first half of August. In a typical year, that process is available as soon as the form opens.
Colleges have been able to use a workaround to submit corrections individually on a student-by-student basis, but Justin Draeger, CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said in a statement that doing so is impractical for large universities that process thousands of applications each year, and also for under-resourced financial aid offices. The delays only create more uncertainty for students who are waiting for information, he said.
“In the end, it’s the most vulnerable students who will once again be harmed by this delay,” Draeger said.
Education secretary acknowledges problems
During a keynote interview last month at a conference organized by the nonprofit Education Writers Association, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona acknowledged the botched rollout of the new application has caused a frustrating situation for everyone involved in the college-going process — students, families, high school counselors and college admissions officers. The department is working with governors, school superintendents and community partners to help students and their parents work through the obstacles that the delays and other issues created, he said.
But once the problems are worked out, Cardona said he’s optimistic that the redesigned form will lead to more students going to college. Replacing the old, complicated form with one that many families can complete in less than a half hour will give more students access to financial aid, he said, which for many is the main factor determining whether they can go to college or not. The old form is one part of a larger education system in which factors like a student’s race and where they were born are better determinants of college access than academic ability, he said.
“There’s a lot of work that we are doing to fix a broken system,” he said. “Improving FAFSA is part of that.”
T3 expands FAFSA support for Tarrant County students
The T3 partnership, also known as Tarrant To and Through, partners with school districts in Tarrant County to help students get to college and graduate with a degree. Earlier this year, the organization received a $240,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support students through the FAFSA process.
Titus, the organization’s programs director, said the organization used part of the grant to hire eight staffers to work with students on FAFSA completion over the summer. Those staffers joined a team of 10 college readiness advisers the organization already had in place, he said.
The fact that T3’s relationships with districts were already in place before the botched rollout began helped to mitigate the worst impacts on students, Titus said. Likewise, the fact that the organization already had a system in place to reach out to students who might need help with college readiness issues over the summer meant it was well equipped to handle FAFSA support, Titus said. The group runs a program called Summer Launch that helps college-bound students stay on track and get ready for their freshman year. Last year, about 700 students signed up for that program. This year, the group expects to see more than twice that total, he said, in large part because of all the challenges associated with the FAFSA.
Titus said he’s confident that Tarrant County students won’t see their college plans derailed because of the rollout. The situation has caused headaches for many families, and a huge amount of work for college prep staffers across the country, he said. But FAFSA filings are continuing to trickle in over the summer, he said, even if they’re later than usual. Even in a typical year, some number of students wait until August, just weeks before the beginning of the fall semester, to complete the form, he said. That number will be larger this year, he said, but he’s hopeful that college prep staffers in the Fort Worth area will be able to handle it.
FWISD, AISD see declines in FAFSA filings
Christina Galanis, director of secondary student engagement for the Fort Worth Independent School District, said the district saw an uptick in the number of students who filled out a waiver exempting them from a state law requiring all students to apply for financial aid before graduating from high school. By June 14, the district’s FAFSA filings were down 18% compared to last year, according to an analysis of federal records by the nonprofit National College Attainment Network. But Galanis was quick to point out that even after those declines, about 67% of the district’s graduating seniors filled out the form, compared to about 53% of seniors statewide.
Galanis said she’s optimistic that many of those seniors who filled out opt-out waivers still plan to go to college. Because applying for financial aid is a graduation requirement in Texas, students who couldn’t get the application completed before graduation had no choice but to opt out, she said. But many of those students have been working with college prep advisors to finish their forms over the summer, she said. She knows of one student who struggled with the application because his parents are undocumented, but plans to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall. The district connected that student with an advisor from T3 who specializes in helping children of undocumented parents navigate the application process, she said.
Galanis said the issues have been particularly burdensome for the district’s mixed-status families, those in which some members are U.S. citizens and some are undocumented. But recent graduates who haven’t yet completed their FAFSAs can still get help over the summer, Galanis said. Fort Worth ISD runs a program called Summer Link that’s designed to help recent graduates stay on track over the summer for college, a career or military service.
The Summer Link program has existed for more than a decade, but Galanis said it’s shifting its focus toward FAFSA support this year. Advisors make regular phone calls to recent graduates to check in. Advisors from Summer Link, as well as from T3, are on hand to help any students who still need to complete the form, she said. She also pointed to a text service operated by the TxCan initiative in partnership with the nonprofit uAspire as another way students can get help.
By June 14, the Arlington Independent School District had seen an 18% decline in FAFSA filings. Telisa Brown, Arlington ISD’s director of guidance and counseling, said the delays were a major obstacle for many of the district’s graduating seniors. Once the application opened in December, some students were able to get through it quickly, while others ran into problems that kept them from being able to finish it at all, she said.
When it became clear that many students weren’t going to be able to complete the application before the end of the school year, district leaders worked with InspirED, the organization it partners with to operate college attainment centers on its high school campuses, to place college and career advisors at each of the district’s summer school sites, Brown said. Students who have questions about the FAFSA or need help completing it can make an appointment to speak with an advisor or simply drop by, she said. Advisors will also meet with students virtually, she said.
To get help from a uAspire advisor on FAFSA completion, text Hello to (469) 940-5412. An advisor will reply within 24 hours, Monday through Friday. Advisors are available to provide support via text message or over virtual meetings.
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