By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
Over this year, many financial aid offices have experienced immense stress and pressure due to the tumultuous rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA. At the NASFAA Virtual Conference on Thursday, a panel of financial aid administrators from under-resourced schools gave their perspectives on how their offices navigated FAFSA simplification challenges, and the lessons learned from the experience.
The panel began with a survey of the audience, which asked multiple questions, including what was financial aid professional greatest frustration in the past six months. A majority of aid professionals said their greatest frustration was incorrect, rejected or missing information on Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs), along with delays in getting ISIRs.
JoEllen Price, dean of financial aid and scholarships at San Jacinto College and moderator of the session, asked the panelists what were some of the biggest challenges with the 2024-25 FAFSA, and how they worked around them. The panelists shared their struggles working at under-resourced schools, and also some of them serving low-income students.
Kelly Morrissey, dean of financial assistance and scholarships at the Community College of Rhode Island, said a significant struggle with the new FAFSA was that parents needed to become active contributors to submit the form, rather than prior years. As a result, Morrissey said her school is 20% down in FAFSA completions this year.
Shannon Crossland, director of student financial services at Frank Phillips College, noted the same frustration with confusion from students and parents on the FSA ID and contributor terms.In order to combat this challenge, Crossland said that her institution benefitted from partnering with local high schools so students and families could understand the FSA ID process.
Further, Crossland said her biggest challenge of FAFSA simplification was all of the unknowns, since information about the 2024-25 FAFSA was changing almost daily during parts of the rollout.
“I felt like anytime my upper administration or my community was asking me a question, my response was either ‘I don't know,’ ‘Stay tuned,’ or ‘We'll get back with you,’” Crossland said. “I just felt that there were so many unknowns. And it made me feel very helpless.”
To help, Crossland decided to start a Student Financial Services Advisory Committee with different members of her institution as a way to update the institution about all the changes happening with FAFSA simplification. Additionally, Crossland said she’d consistently email members of her institution's upper administration with updates about the FAFSA.
Christina Tangalakis, associate dean of financial Aid at Glendale Community College, noted another big challenge aid offices had to face were issues with students from mixed-status families not being able to complete the FAFSA. In April, ED provided a temporary filling fix for mixed-status families.
But for Tangalakis, what still “stings” the most is the loss of trust between aid offices and ED. Over the past six months, many financial aid professionals have voiced concerns about their confidence in ED to properly communicate changes with FAFSA simplification. During Thursday’s session many of the panelists like Sharmain Lazard-Talbert, director of financial aid and interim director of recruitment and enrollment services at Southern University at Shreveport, said their staff have felt discouraged by the rollout.
A concern among all the panelists was their own mental health and their colleagues' mental health during the rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA, which was stressful and presented significant challenges for many financial aid professionals. FAFSA simplification also came at a time when many financial aid professionals are likely to seek other employment opportunities within the next year.
Tamika Bybee, director of financial Aid at Howard Community College, said that something that’s helped her institution was their use of “in-service days,” where the financial aid office is shut down so administrators can focus on backend work. Additionally, Bybee stressed the importance of encouraging employees to take time off to recharge.
As part of the panel, Price also asked the audience their thoughts on when the 2025-26 FAFSA would be released — just as the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would officially require the Department of Education (ED) to make the FAFSA form available to students on October 1. The majority of financial aid professionals said they think the 2025-26 FAFSA will be released sometime in December, followed by a January 1, 2025 launch.
So far, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said it's the department’s expectation that it will launch the 2025-26 FAFSA on October 1.
If you missed this session, a reminder that one institutional registration will allow everyone on your roster to attend and access the sessions from the NASFAA 2024 Virtual Conference on demand, post-conference, for six months following the air date, unless the topic matter deems the presentation no longer valid.
Publication Date: 7/12/2024
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