Daunting federal college-aid form flunks with most families
By Tamar Lewin, New York Times | February 22, 2009
NEW YORK - Most everyone agrees that something is very wrong with the six-page federal form for families seeking help with college costs.
Created in 1992 to simplify applying for financial aid, it has become so intimidating - with more than 100 questions - that critics say it scares off the very families most in need, preventing some teenagers from going to college.
Then, too, some families have begun paying for professional help with the form, known as the FAFSA, a situation that specialists say indicates just how far awry the whole process has gone.
“We’re getting thousands of calls a day,” said Craig V. Carroll, chief executive of Student Financial Aid Services Inc., whose FAFSA.com charges $80 to $100 to fill out the form. “Our calls for the month of January are up about 35 percent from last year. There’s been a huge increase in the desperation of families.”
Last year, Congress ordered the form streamlined, but in the very same bill it added seven new questions. Critics say that even when all those questions are answered, the form does a poor job of assessing financial worth, both because it excludes assets like cars, boats, the family home, and some family businesses, and because it does not factor in the high cost of living in areas like New York.
On the campaign trail, President Barack Obama promised to eliminate the form - officially, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, talked about the problem at his confirmation hearing, saying, “You basically have to have a PhD to figure that thing out.”
But whether it will be replaced soon, and with what, remains an open question.
Between the recession and the rising cost of college, more families than ever are filing the forms this year, their first step toward Pell grants, Stafford loans, Perkins loans, work-study programs, and much state aid. As of Feb. 15, the Department of Education had already received 2,213,408 forms, 20 percent more than at this time last year.
Some researchers have found that the form could be drastically simplified without any great impact on students’ aid eligibility. But specialists warn that if the form becomes too simple, some states and universities might create new forms to get additional information.
“In the long run, I think the FAFSA will get easier,” said Lauren Asher, acting president of the Institute for College Access and Success. “But not this year.”
The Department of Education is considering two approaches to simplifying the form, said Robert Shireman, founder of the institute and currently a consultant to Duncan. One, proposed by former secretary of education Margaret Spellings in a Jan. 16 letter to Congress, would cut out most financial questions, asking only for adjusted gross income and the number of tax exemptions. Her sample form is two pages and has fewer than 30 questions.
The other approach, favored by Asher and others, would let taxpayers direct the Internal Revenue Service to share information from their tax returns with the Education Department.
“It’s not yet been decided which way to go,” Shireman said.
The form becomes available each year on Jan. 1, and counselors urge families to file early because some aid is first come first served. Free help for filing is widely available, from the Education Department, counselors, and workshops.