The updated 2024–2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) recently became available. According to CNN, these changes have been in the works for quite some time.
The United States Department of Education claims that the changes expand eligibility for financial aid—including for Pell Grants—and have shortened the questions required to complete the form for some users.
These changes will impact students at Portland State, as 61% of PSU students receive financial aid and 30% are eligible for the Pell Grant—a form of financial aid awarded to students with exceptional financial need in their first-degree program. The Department of Education expects around 610,000 students from low-income families to become eligible for the Pell Grant with the new aid calculation process.
CNN reported that students with siblings in college might see a drop in financial aid awards with the removal of the sibling discount or the consideration of a parent’s potential contribution towards education expenses for other children in college at the same time.
Furthermore, prior drug convictions will no longer restrict students from receiving aid, and the Selective Service Act—which mandated men within a specific age range to sign up for potential drafting—is no longer a requirement.
Another of the significant changes was the simplification of the application. “If you go on to look at the FAFSA, you’ll see up front a whole lot of new definitional and instructional work,” said Elijah Herr, PSU’s director of financial aid. “That can be really intimidating for students. They’re like, ‘What is all this new information?’ And that’s really the Department of Education’s attempt to try to help folks understand what they’re getting themselves into.”
Moreover, Herr advised students to be aware of some things when filling out the FAFSA form. Instead of filling out the form with a parent or a spouse for students who are dependent or married, students will need to authorize the other party to fill out their part of the form. The application could be canceled if the other party does not complete their portion in 45 days. Thus, students should ensure the other party is ready to complete the form when they send it.
Herr explained how the financial aid office may email students asking for additional information. Students applying for financial aid should monitor their student emails and respond to any requests from the office promptly to expedite the processing of aid awards.
Herr feels these changes are positive for all parties but will require time for adjustment. “It’s a complete remodel of the whole [system],” he said. “With changes that big, there’s going to be delays.”
Typically, the FAFSA opens on Oct. 1, but CNN reported that changes to the application delayed the form’s proper opening until Dec. 30, 2023, when it was soft-launched for short periods of time.
The Department of Education noted how they might initiate pauses on the application for technical updates. Herr anticipates the site may be stable by the last week in January, as his financial aid colleagues have noted an improvement in site quality.
“We do encourage students to apply as soon as possible for some limited funds, like Federal Work Study and the Oregon Opportunity Grant,” Herr said. In Oregon, grants—like the Oregon Opportunity Grant—and scholarships through the Office of Student Access and Completion use FAFSA forms to determine financial need for specific awards.
Herr noted the deadlines for Scholarship Universe—PSU’s scholarship portal—were pushed back to account for the delay in the FAFSA opening.
Communication graduate student Lillian Mantel said she experienced confusion and frustration while filling out the previous FAFSA form before getting assistance from a financial aid counselor.
“I don’t know what I did or how I did it, but for a year or two I was paying when I shouldn’t have,” Mantel explained. “I filled it out wrong somehow.”
After receiving assistance from a financial aid counselor, she said she was finally able to get the aid she needed.
According to CBS, students who accessed the forms early indicated some trouble filling them out. Yet, some PSU students said this iteration of the FAFSA form did not take as long as previous years’ forms.
Nina Rockwell, a graduate student in the English department, said she was surprised at how quickly she could fill out the new FAFSA form. She also noted a significant change in the process where students can permit the FAFSA to input information from their tax returns instead of the students manually entering it.
“The changes are beneficial in that they lower the pressure of applying, but I think the anxiety of doing something wrong is still there,” Rockwell said. “Due to [the process] being so fast, I was worried I did something wrong. [There could still be] more clarity on what happens behind the scenes.”
Herr said resources are available for students with questions about the FAFSA application process. The state of Oregon is hosting some line-by-line FAFSA webinars.
Another group called ECMC runs local FAFSA nights in the Portland area, where PSU financial aid staff help out.
If those resources don’t fit with the student’s schedule and they have additional questions about filing this FAFSA form, they “can certainly give [PSU’s financial aid office] a call and we’ll try to help them over the phone,” Herr said. “Or we can set up a counselor appointment for them to walk them through how to do specific questions.”