In June, Education Secretary Arne Duncan presented President Barack Obama administration’s renovation plans for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). It’s their belief that the daunting 153-question application is a major deterrent toward Obama achieving his goal to have the United States boast the highest percentage of college graduates in the world. The grand idea is to simplify the process, thereby increasing the number of applicants.
According to a February 2006 report by The American Council on Education, approximately 1.5 million low- to moderate-income undergraduates in 2003-04 lost out on a Pell Grant just because they didn’t apply.
The article attempts to determine the reasons why so many eligible students wouldn’t submit a FAFSA application. It refers to a 1995-96 survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education that specifically asked students why they didn’t apply. Unbelievably, the most common answer, at 41 percent, was that they or their family could afford to pay for them to go to college.
Not a very smart reason considering 24 percent of the non-applicants in 2003-04 came from the two lowest income groups, dependent students with incomes less than $40,000 and independent students with incomes less than $20,000. These students were guaranteed to receive Pell Grants if they had only taken the time to apply.
Even though the FASFA process is tediously complicated, it seems more likely that Americans are plain lazy and don’t want to exert themselves. Ironically, the ability to navigate and accomplish the application process is a huge indicator of the student’s capability to successfully achieve the ultimate goal of higher education, which is to obtain a degree.
However, there is always room for improvement and the new plan focuses on efficiency. Beginning in January 2010, spring quarter FAFSA applicants will be able to access their tax information from the IRS online. This in itself is a huge step toward bringing our government out of the technological dark ages, and will also help to eliminate the applicant’s anxiety over preparation hassles.
Also, in May, the Department of Education enacted an instant estimation of eligibility, which eliminates weeks wasted waiting to hear if you’re even eligible to apply. Finally, the Administration will be asking Congress to pass legislation that will remove 26 redundant financial questions that are not accessible from the IRS. Apparently, these questions are considered time-consuming to answer, and they have now been deemed unnecessary because they play only a small consequence on the awarded aid amount.
Those of us who actually fill out the application appreciate the efforts toward making the process easier, but will these changes be enough to motivate potential students to get off their lethargic butts to actually apply? The reality is that these trivial improvements are promised to be only the beginning steps of the Obama administration’s plan to bring long-overdue relief to financially burdened college student families; hopefully they are not the last.
Maybe now the new administration can focus on how to help graduates pay back the whopping $550 billion owed to the Department of Education in current and future federal student loans. Or maybe they can now strategize new guidelines that will allow moderate-income students entrance into the financial aid program and eliminate the access of it by illegal immigrants. Now is the time for Obama to make good on his promise to make college a reachable goal for all Americans.
Yes, completing the FAFSA application is challenging, but mostly it’s just time-consuming. Nobody wants to spend time gathering information and punching it into a computer when they could be watching “Prison Break.” There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve the process by increasing efficiency, but the administration shouldn’t be too shocked when they find that it isn’t necessarily the arduous process keeping Americans from applying for FAFSA, it’s their slothfulness.