Students deserve better FASFA support

Compared to how much time we spend helping people get into college, we don’t spend nearly enough teaching them how to pay for it.

Every year, students across the country must file the FAFSA form — Free Application for Federal Student Aid — in order to receive federal, state and institutional financial aid for college. Without support for accessing this financial aid, higher education might seem out of reach and overwhelming to students who are unfamiliar with the form.

Financial need is a major reason that many college-ready students end up not applying. The complexities of getting help are hurdles for those hoping to get an education, and it is crucial for students to have support programs that guide them through it. High schools and universities should have a broad support system to provide information and assistance in this critical step toward higher education.

The process of applying for financial aid is anything but swift. It involves submitting tax information of both students and parents, recording assets, disclosing grant applications and additional verification forms to complete a financial package. All of this can take months, and most of the directions simply state what form is needed rather than explaining how to get the information.

Preoccupied by media reports about student loans and worried about the “sticker price” of universities, some students can’t completely break down financial aid applications.

There is a general lack of knowledge about how financial aid works — especially impacting low-income and first-generation students. Without parents who have gone through the process before or access to outside college preparation services, it is too easy to make a mistake along the way.

Research by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators indicates that low-income students and first-generation college students are the least likely to complete the FAFSA, even though they are the most in need of financial aid. Often, the students applying for school and aid are the first ones in their households to do so, leaving them with limited guidance about how the process works. The lack of guidance needed to complete the form clearly weighs most heavily on the ones who would be most likely to receive the aid.

Additionally, FAFSA operates on a first-come, first-served basis with different deadlines depending on the institution, so the timeliness of completion also impacts a student’s aid.

The NASFAA study also found that timeliness of student aid application completion was closely related to income, with wealthier students filing their FAFSA forms earlier than middle and low-income students. This, too, came down to a lack of experienced guidance in lower income households. More aid ends up going to the students who need financial support the least.

Mistakenly missing a deadline or misfiling an answer should not limit aid that students would otherwise be eligible to earn.

There are already some government efforts to monitor and increase FAFSA completion rates, but these initiatives have yet to result in a positive difference.

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Education launched a FAFSA completion website that gathers completion statistics at high schools and tracks submissions.

Pittsburgh’s own Carrick High School has a total enrollment of 188 seniors, but only 78 students completed FAFSAs by December of 2015. That means just 41.4 percent of its students completed the form. While it’s likely that not all of the remaining students plan to attend college, the ones who do will simply have no access to aid and fall through the cracks.

If all schools had financial aid assistance programs as a part of their high school guidance counseling or university financial aid offices, students would be far less likely to fall behind or make a mistake on their FAFSA.

At Pitt, we have student support services for low-income and first-generation students who need academic support. Increased awareness and advertising of these services could be useful for many, since we rarely receive information about paying for school beyond notifications that there is a new e-bill.

But the financial aid office does not provide extra FAFSA support to the general student body. The majority of students are left to handle the stressful process on their own — an assumption that could be detrimental to some students who are uncertain about filing the details.

According to the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, 69.7 percent of Pitt students applied for need-based aid, while the average percent of aid met was 55.4 percent.

The majority of Pitt students are applying for financial aid, so making sure every student files the FAFSA every year correctly and on time is necessary. For some, it could make the difference for continuing their studies or not.

Students attending college are making the biggest investments of their lives. It’s not asking too much that someone invest in helping them plan first.

Kirsten Wong primarily writes on social justice issues and education for The Pitt News

Write to her at kew101@pitt.edu