Articles Tagged: FAFSA

Despite fears of another cycle plagued with delays or other issues, financial aid experts are saying that the start of the new federal student aid filing period has gone smoothly, taking a weight off their and families’ shoulders.

Although more “post-mortem” is needed to determine the full impact of the massive delays and widespread confusion that plagued the government’s botched rollout of its revised Free Application for Federal Student Aid last term, admissions directors across Iowa’s public universities last week recounted the ramifications for their campuses, their applicants, and their returning students.

Also, Gov. Kim Reynolds announces awards to Iowans whose homes were damaged by flooding and tornadoes

Taking matters into its own hands — following the U.S. Department of Education’s tumultuous and confused rollout of its new FAFSA — Coe College on Tuesday announced a “regent price match” aimed at providing “immediate help to Iowa students entering college for the first time in the fall.”

None of the 380 high schools in Iowa are reporting any “completed” FAFSA applications this year simply because they can’t, thanks to rampant delays and what some have called a “smorgasbord of errors” and glitches.

Universities nationwide, including those across Iowa, are prioritizing access and affordability to higher education among their recruiting strategies – even as tuition rises – and many hope a first update to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in many decades will help.

A change in the federal student aid formula could mean lower levels of financial aid for children whose parents run family farms or small businesses. Currently, a family with an adjusted gross income of $60,000 and a farm worth $1 million would be expected to contribute $7,626 annually for college. Under the new formula, that same family would be expected to contribute $41,056.

During the pandemic, nearly half of Iowa high school seniors applied for college financial aid — on par with the previous cycle but below pre-pandemic levels and lower than the national rate, according to a new state FAFSA report.

When COVID-19-19 shuttered schools last spring, a key factor in getting high school seniors to college — FAFSAs — flatlined. Where “Free Application for Federal Student Aid” filings had been rising in Iowa, the pandemic’s onset halted that progress and in the year since reversed some of the gains.