The new 2024 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) underwent several changes and faced numerous delays, causing many students difficulties with financial aid, and in cases, some having their awards rescinded.  

The 2024-2025 FAFSA application went through a transformation in an effort to create a simpler form for students, parents, and colleges, according to a press release made by the U.S. Department of Education. The new changes include fewer questions, a direct data exchange with the IRS, and a new formula that impacts how financial aid packages are determined. The changes to FAFSA were initiated by the FAFSA Simplification Act, passed by Congress in 2020. 

Once a student submits the FAFSA, they are eligible for federal, state, and school-based financial aid. This includes student loans, need-based grants, work-study, and even some scholarships. 

The new FAFSA opened in late December. 2023 causing a lot of stress and confusion for students, parents, and college administrators. The delayed rollout caused a chain reaction of delays in completing the form, issuing federal student aid reports, creating financial aid packages from colleges, which in turn impacted student’s decisions about where or if to attend college in the 2024-2025 academic year. 

The biggest challenge the Undergraduate Financial Aid Department at Chapman University faced was the unknown, coupled with the delays in back-end processes and necessary tools to perform proper duties, according to David Carnevale, assistant vice president of Undergraduate Financial Aid. 

“The Department of Education relied on the default language of ‘contact your school if you have questions’ and, unfortunately, we were unable to answer those questions because of the delays,” Carnevale said. 

Complications for many students were not only due to the delays and processing issues but the changes in determining financial aid eligibility, according to Carnevale. 

“Three of the biggest changes that we saw included the exclusion of the number of students in college from the calculation, a change in definition of which parent’s information is included on the FAFSA, and the inclusion of the value of businesses and farms that may have previously been excluded,” Carnevale said. 

Many students who fell into these categories saw significant changes in their financial aid eligibility. 

Sahil Sharriff, a sophomore business administration major, was heavily impacted by these changes. He had received numerous grants and loans the previous year, but this year received no aid due to the change of no longer including siblings attending college as part of the eligibility criteria. Sharriff has an older sister attending medical school and a mother who is pursuing her master’s degree.   

“I didn’t get anything and I tried to appeal it, and it was rejected,” said Sharriff. “Especially with everything being so expensive, it is hard as a college student to keep up with expenses.”

Chapman’s Undergraduate Financial Aid Department has a formal appeal process to review special circumstances which is how they are able to help most students who fall into these groups. 

“While we were able to help most students who fell into these categories, there were quite a few students who we could not,” Carnevale said. 

Sharriff, who is currently employed at the Student Employment Department and who relied on this job for an income also had his Federal Work-Study award taken away. 

“I cannot work as many hours and working at Chapman was what I used to keep up with personal expenses,” Sharriff said. “It is harder to keep up with it now.” 

The delays and challenges also had detrimental effects on students and parents with some students simply giving up on FAFSA and ultimately on college too. 

“The sad reality of the simplified FAFSA rollout is that, across the country, far fewer students actually completed the FAFSA this year,” Carnevale said. “We can never know exactly why someone didn’t complete their FAFSA or follow through with fixing issues on their FAFSA, but the end result is that, if they needed money to attend college, they didn’t go to college this year.”

Another issue that plagued the Financial Aid Department was availability. Many students reported having trouble reaching the Financial Aid Department leading up to payment deadlines. 

Adam Schwartz, a senior political science major, reflected on the stress he faced leading up to the deadline to choose a payment plan after not receiving his merit-based scholarship. 

“Me and my dad both tried calling and emailing (the Financial Aid Department) on a couple different occasions,” Schwartz said. “They told us they would give us a call back but the call never came.” 

Schwartz followed up by going to the in-person office where the issue was resolved and his scholarship was reinstated. 

“I was trying to figure out if there was something I had done wrong to cause this situation, but no,” he said. “It seems like if they felt like it they could have withheld my scholarship money.” 

Schwartz vocalized improvements that could be made for the future. 

“For one, just having better communication with students and more availability at times where they know students will face issues,” he said. “This would  just be a way to mitigate a lot of the stress that students and parents feel with the financial aid troubles.”

The Financial Aid Department is particularly impacted during the days before the first payment is due on the student accounts and the week leading up to the first day of classes, according to Carnevale. 

“Unfortunately, this was compounded by the issues with the FAFSA. We were averaging about 75 to 100 emails an hour and, at any given time, this caused a backlog of about 400 emails a day on top of phone calls and appointments,” he said. 

“It’s obviously difficult, we aren’t just dealing with numbers, we are dealing with people and I always remind my team to keep that in mind,” Carnevale stated. “Sometimes that means just listening to concerns and what is going on with the family.”

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that there will be delays in the 2025-2026 FAFSA rollout too.   

“We also try to stay as positive as we can,” Carnevale said. “We know this year was a difficult year for everyone but there is a silver lining; the goal of the simplified FAFSA is to get more money into the hands of more students in need.”