National FAFSA processing delay causes uncertainty among students

By Julia Ballard

Staff Writer

The FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is experiencing some major delays in its financial aid eligibility process. This affects both current and prospective students.

FAFSA is a program that the federal government offers to both current and future college students. Depending on factors such as income, employment and assets, the FAFSA will provide scholarships, loans and Pell Grants.

This application opens online in October of every school year to give anticipated financial estimates to students. This year’s 2023-2024 FAFSA has had setbacks including the delayed release of the application, pushing its release to December 2023 instead of the expected October 2023.

“The FAFSA was overhauled for the 2024-2025 academic year, which affects everyone who will be in school next year. Schools are not able to accurately tell students what their aid looks like because of this delay,” said Kevin Reed, director of financial services.

The federal government simplified the application process, which left off essential questions for those filling it out. This has in turn tasked universities with the job of collecting this additional information from students causing an even further delay.

University officials have acknowledged the delay, attributing it to technical glitches and the attempt to oversimplify the application. Reed and the rest of the financial services have reassured students that measures are underway to expedite processing and minimize disruptions to financial aid distribution.

“We’ve received about 1,600 applications since March 25 and an additional 200 every day since then.

They’re backlogged, and it’s not anticipated to be all caught up in 2-3 weeks,” says Reed.

These delays have heightened anxieties among prospective students and their families who rely on federal aid to fund their higher education journey. The main foreseeable problem with this setback has been that it has prolonged the fears of students who already feel under pressure about big college decisions.

“This has been a market disruption that all colleges around the country are facing. Trevecca’s advantage in this is that we have always worked one-on-one with families. We have already reached out to families as FAFSA packages have slowly trickled in to work through this with them,” says Melinda Miller, vice president of undergraduate enrollment.

Despite financial hiccups, the office of admissions reports that this has not affected the interest of prospective students.

This past February, Trevecca hosted Experience Trevecca Day, a preview day for prospective students and family members, and the numbers exceeded expectations being the largest since 2019.

“It’s a little early to tell if final admissions numbers will be down. We’ve found that students are taking longer to decide because they have to wait on their FAFSA aid. A lot of students and even colleges rely on this, and a lot of them don’t want to choose until they know what’s coming into play,” says Jacob Lagesse, director of new student financial aid.

The university is working to address any technical issues causing the delay within their means and continue to process the applications at hand. The final day to submit the 2024-2025 FAFSA applications is June 30, and you can do so at http://www.studentaid.gov. For additional financial questions, contact Kevin Reed (KReed@trevecca.edu).