How is the new, long-awaited simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) working? Pretty well, according to Eddy Conroy of the National College Attainment Network.
For years, I ran a program at my campus that prepared college students to assist high school students who would be first-generation students in selecting and applying to college. FAFSA Night was one of their biggest challenges. The financial aid application was notoriously difficult, especially for families where adults were not yet proficient in English, where families had moved often and lost some records, where parents were ambivalent about their kids going to college and were slow to provide the required documentation.
But on FAFSA night, our college students would team up with the guidance counselors in school computer labs to walk students (and sometimes parents) through the applications, but no one was clear that we were getting things right.
Now, finally, Conroy reports, the FAFSA takes 15 minutes, not an entire evening. A record number of students in the high school class of 2026 completed the application. Completion rates are up for students in rural and urban schools, for white and students of color, and across income levels.
Conroy writes:
The biggest increases in college applications are coming from the students we want to help: first-generation, historically underrepresented and coming from communities with the lowest median incomes. People with fewer resources struggle more with administrative burdens. And so making the financial aid process easier for these students shows that a well-designed universal process can level the playing field and reduce inequality.
It's a rare instance of good news about educational inequality. It took much too long to get there, the Pell Grants that students may be eligible for are still inadequate, but the organizations that fought so hard for these changes deserve all the flowers and all the applause.
Go read Conroy's whole post to learn more about the long saga of removing the "administrative burdens" of applying for financial aid and the imperatives that we do so.
