Heading into summer, FAFSA fallout continues for Iowa colleges, universities, students

IOWA CITY — The federal government’s “simplified” FAFSAs finally are flowing, after more than a year of delays and a bungled rollout blocked — and, in some cases, stopped — students from submitting the forms many consider their ticket to higher education.

And yet, the number of Free Applications for Federal Student Aid filed across Iowa still is well below previous years — including last year, when the state’s FAFSA numbers on May 10 were 16 percent above where they were on that date this year.

“While we have made progress in FAFSA completion for all students, the filing rate for current students is still approximately 15 percent lower than it was at this time last year,” Coe College Financial Aid Director Barb Hoffman told The Gazette.

For new incoming students at Coe, the campus is down about 35 percent in FAFSA submissions compared to this time last year, according to Hoffman.

“At this time, we are still nearly 30 percent down in financial aid offers sent to incoming students compared to last year,” she said.

And Coe is not alone.

The University of Iowa as of May 17 had 13 percent fewer FAFSA applications compared to the same date last year, dragging down its financial aid offers 10 percent.

The University of Northern Iowa is down about 9 percent from last year in both FAFSA completion rates and aid offers. And Iowa State University reported receiving about 4,000 fewer FAFSA applications through the first five months of the current FAFSA cycle compared to the same period last year, a drop of about 13 percent.

“One of the biggest concerns would be that students and families won't have accurate information about what they may qualify for and thus choose not to attend college at all,” UNI spokesman Pete Moris said, referencing the process that’s involved not only slow information but — in some cases — wrong information.

FAFSA flaws

Exacerbating cracks in the execution of the 2021 FAFSA Simplification Act that began to emerge almost immediately and then more glaringly in March 2023, the U.S. Department of Education — after months of delays, a stalled launch, and rampant errors — in March 2024 said a miscalculation in its FAFSA formula had caused it to send incorrect financial-need data to colleges and universities.

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Flawed FAFSA rollout impacting students, schools, campuses across Iowa

The error, according to media reports, affected about 200,000 of the 1.3 million FAFSA forms submitted through that point — requiring reprocessing and more delays in an already waylaid system.

In April — before Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray announced plans to step down — the Department of Education reported about 17 percent of FAFSAs submitted through March 30 contained errors it needed to correct.

The errors — affecting about 1.1 million applications — included inconsistent tax credit data from the Internal Revenue Service and updated tax returns.

Additionally, the department in early April set a goal of allowing students to amend or correct any information on their applications by “early next week.”

“We will communicate publicly that students needing to make corrections, such as adding schools, providing a signature, and allowing for IRS data to be shared can do so by logging into their account,” according to the department’s April 9 update. “For most applicants and contributors, this process should only take a few minutes.”

But UI Assistant Provost and Student Financial Aid Director Brenda Buzynski said — more than a month later — that while students can submit corrections, schools can’t until the end of June.

“Schools, including the University of Iowa, are currently unable to submit corrections to a student’s FAFSA,” she said. “Normally we would be submitting corrections as early as January. This could mean some students will not receive a corrected FAFSA and financial aid offer until mid-July.”

Given a meaningful number of students rely on financial aid information and offers to make college decisions, the FAFSA flaws could postpone or prevent an entree into higher education for some — at least for this fall.

Campuses aren’t releasing early application numbers or total enrollment projections — although the University of Iowa, in reporting on early housing applications, has predicted a freshman class on par with past classes.

“We are grateful for the patience that many students and parents have shown throughout this spring,” Buzynski said. “And we remain committed to assisting them throughout the summer.”

High school completions

When looking at FAFSA completions across Iowa high schools — epicenter for the FAFSA fallout, making waves across college campuses — some, perhaps due to proactive efforts to counteract the troubles, are reporting numbers on par or even better than last year.

But most high school FAFSA completions are down — with Iowa reporting a statewide rate of 41 percent, about 16 percent lower than last year through the same period.

Nationally, the completion rate is down 17 percent from last year — with Louisiana reporting the highest completion rate of 58 percent, still down 18 percent, and Alaska reporting the lowest at 21 percent, down 17 percent.

As of May 10 in the Cedar Rapids area, Washington High School reported 102 completed applications, down only slightly from last year’s 116 through the same period; Kennedy High had 172 applications, down from 195; Prairie High had 214, down from 234; and Jefferson High had 103, down from 149.

In the Iowa City Community School District, City High had 183 applications by that date, down from 207; West High had 173, down from 221; and Liberty High in North Liberty was among the few to see an uptick, to 182 from 178 last year.

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Despite a general drop in application numbers, UI officials — as soon as they could in April — began sending out financial aid offers. The quick work enabled the UI financial aid team to prepare offers for a higher percent of their applications to date than through the same period last year — at 75 percent, compared to 72 percent in 2023, Buzynski said.

“The benchmark level for public universities preparing financial aid offers is 65 percent, so anytime a school surpasses that, it’s an excellent indicator of its effectiveness,” she said.

Still, because UI has gotten fewer FAFSA applications, its number of offers has dropped about 10 percent from 28,858 to 25,930 through May 17.

“The University of Iowa has done a tremendous job this year despite the challenges,” Buzynski said.

As of May 21, Iowa State’s financial aid team had processed more than 18,800 aid offers, slightly ahead of its pace last year. After so many delays, and with information finally in their hands and processed, the ISU aid-offer effort involved an “all-hands-on-deck” approach in late April of envelope stuffing in shifts.

“In a normal year, admitted first-year students would have received their financial aid offers from Iowa State in early February,” according to ISU officials, reporting as of May 1 receiving financial aid data on about 33,000 students, as opposed to the normal 40,000.

Ongoing issues

And while all the campuses are grateful to finally have data to work with, many report ongoing challenges — including at Coe, which as a private college relies in part on Iowa Tuition Grant aid for its student scholarships.

“The Iowa Department of Education still needs to issue the parameters for the Iowa Tuition Grant,” Coe’s Financial Aid Director Hoffman said. “This delay is due to processing issues with the FAFSA and changes to the needs analysis formula — which is all part of the FAFSA Simplification Act.”

As part of the changes, farmers and small business owners now must include the net value of their farms and businesses on the forms. And, Hoffman said, the issues other campuses have raised about corrections and changes — and the difficulty making them — has made it hard for college and university experts to help.

“College financial aid staff typically have access to a processed FAFSA as soon as it is filed by the student,” Hoffman said. “When financial aid staff have access, they can assist families … Although this functionality was initially scheduled to be available in early spring, the U.S. Department of Education has postponed this functionality to a later date.”

A recent Board of Regents report shows financial aid has been trending up across the campuses — with undergraduate aid bumping up from $274 million in the 2022 budget year to $290 million in the 2023 budget year at Iowa State; from $251 million to $281 million at UI; and from $54 million to $55 million at UNI.

But while total aid from the institutions has been soaring over the last decade-plus, aid from the federal government has been dropping — mirroring a national trend. Total aid from the regent institutions — including undergraduate and graduate students — increased from $254 million in the 2010 budget year to $463 million in the 2023 budget year, the most recent year available. While federal aid for regent students dropped, including at the undergraduate level, from $319 million in 2021 to $304 million more recently.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com