Harvard scholars suggest simplified FAFSA
Published May 5, 2006
If two Harvard University scholars have their way, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA, could be shortened.
Professors Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton claim in a working paper that because the form is so cumbersome, it keeps some lower-income families from realizing how much financial aid is available.
"Some of the problems are that low-income students are much less likely to have a parent or sibling who has gone through the process, and they are much less likely to have Internet access at home so they have to use the paper FAFSA, which takes longer to fill out and process," Scott-Clayton said in an e-mail. "They may not have the luxury of being able to make a decision about attending college before they know how much it will actually cost."
In their paper, Scott-Clayton and Dynarski state the FAFSA would better serve families if it were a short form.
"We would like to see federal aid based on a much smaller subset of financial information," Scott-Clayton said. "Ideally, the aid formula would be simple enough that it could be explained to high school students in a sentence or two. The simpler the formula, the easier it will be to communicate to people much earlier in the college preparation process."
Financial Aid Office Director Joe Camille said he sees both sides of the FAFSA form argument.
"More low-income students and their families would probably complete the simplified FAFSA and thus receive aid," he said.
Camille said a negative aspect to the plan is that some families might not have to report some assets and non-taxable income under current tax laws. He said their adjusted gross income might allow higher-income students to receive aid they wouldn't be allowed to with the current FAFSA.
"This could cause a political backlash from average folks who cannot reduce their AGI and who see these people as undeserving of aid, and in my opinion they are not needy," he said. "Awarding aid to these types of families could put these aid programs in political jeopardy."
Scott-Clayton said shortening the form would eliminate the redundancy between tax forms and the FAFSA.
"Since most of the key elements that determine aid eligibility are already collected on these tax forms, the FAFSA creates a lot of redundancy," she said. "Running student aid through the tax system would eliminate the need for a separate financial aid application all together, would lessen the burden on schools to verify financial data and would help communicate information about student aid to a wider population. You wouldn't be nine-tenths of the way through applying for college before you learn your aid eligibility."
