Hawaii high school seniors’ completion rate for the federal financial aid form known as FAFSA is lagging dramatically due to the problem-plagued recent implementation of a revised version of the form, and University of Hawaii President David Lassner said he is concerned that it could potentially lead to lower college enrollment.
“We have a high school graduating class (in Hawaii) of a little over 11,000, and only 28.4% have completed a FAFSA so far, down from 48% last year, so we’re hoping that catches up,” Lassner said Thursday during his monthly report to the UH Board of Regents. The rollout of the new Free Application for Financial Student Aid, he said, “continues to be widely acknowledged as a debacle.”
The reason enrollment could be affected is that prospective college students “don’t want to make a commitment until they understand how much aid is being offered by different institutions to which they have been accepted,” Lassner told the regents.
“So this is a heads up that we don’t yet know what the impact will be on our fall 2024 enrollment, and this is true across the country. … This is a real challenge, and I just want you to have this heads up now. So you aren’t surprised if things are as bad as they might be.”
Ongoing snarls with the new form have led local organizers of the FAFSA Hawaii Hotline to extend its hours and push its end date way back, to May 31. The hotline at 808-842-2540, created to help local families navigate challenges with the new FAFSA, originally had been announced as running for just five days this month. (See accompanying box at right for more information on the hotline, webinars and other help.)
UH announced last month that it has shifted its enrollment deadline from May 1 to June 1 because of the problems with the FAFSA. The deadline to apply for new on-campus housing also has been extended to June 1.
“It appears that most students are now able to complete the (FAFSA) application,” Lassner told the UH regents. “But the federal government is not yet returning substantial data to institutions. We got our first trickle last week, and they are way behind schedule.”
Lassner said UH officials have been running webinars between federal officials and UH financial aid directors, upgrading computer systems to accept the new types of data, and trying to guide students and families who run into problems with their financial forms, but “it’s a huge challenge for all of us. We’re about four months behind where we would normally be.”
The latest setback with the form was announced Friday, when the U.S. Education Department said it had discovered a calculation error in hundreds of thousands of student financial aid applications sent to colleges this month and will need to reprocess them. A vendor working for the federal government had incorrectly calculated a financial aid formula for more than 200,000 students. The department already has been dealing with a backlog of about 4 million applications.
The FAFSA is the gateway form for many prospective college students. It is used to determine eligibility for federal Pell Grants, loans and work-study programs. Many states and schools also use information from the FAFSA to award other types of aid.
The form is required to apply for any part of the more than $150 billion available in grants, loans and work-study funds from the federal government to help students pay for college, says the Hawai‘i P-20 Partnerships for Education website.
Usually the form is available on Oct. 1. But the U.S. Department of Education began making the revised version available only sporadically in late December, then users encountered bugs, and the form wasn’t accessible 24 hours every day until early January.
A rash of further glitches and missteps since have caused more delays and headaches for families and schools, and left countless students in the lurch, without assurance that they will get the financial aid they need to attend their college of choice. The issue has become a political lightning rod, and the federal Government Accountability Office has launched an investigation into the new form’s implementation.
A tracker maintained by the National College Attainment Network shows that as of March 15, only 1.3 million students had submitted FAFSA forms — nearly 31% fewer than with the prior graduating class at that same point the year before.
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Free hotline and webinars on FAFSA
>> Hotline: Hawai‘i P-20 Partnerships for Education and Gear Up Hawai‘i are lengthening hours and duration of their hotline that provides help with the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid. “Callers will be able to speak directly with counselors and financial aid specialists to assist with any FAFSA questions they may have,” a news release said. • Call 808-842-2540. • Extended hours begin Monday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, through May 31.
>> Virtual FAFSA Completion Workshops: Hawai‘i P-20 is continuing these workshops to allow families to ask financial aid questions and get assistance with creating their federal student aid ID, and/or work directly with an expert online to submit their FAFSA and receive individualized feedback. • Wednesdays through April 24 • Register at 808ne.ws/3Vw7zSl
>> Online FAFSA Submission Summary Review Workshops: These workshops helping families understand what they can expect in the months following their FAFSA submission, and how to review their submission summary and Student Aid Report. • Thursday and April 4 • Register: 808ne.ws/3Vw7zSl
More information on FAFSA and college- planning webinars is available at CollegeIsWithinReachHawaii.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
