FAFSA's faults discourages students from applying

The FAFSA application pool has increased 20 percent due to the economy.

By Mila Mimica

Published Feb. 27, 2009

The amount of forms and applications a high school senior must fill out can be a daunting task, not only for the prospective college student but also for the parents.

Since 1992, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid has served as the financial aid go-to application. It consists of more than 100 questions aimed at identifying how much financial aid the student will be entitled to.

"Financial aid administrators have looked at the form so much over the years, that it is no longer that intimidating to us," Student Financial Aid Director Jim Brooks said. "The form is simpler now than it was when I started working in financial aid, but it still requires families to provide a lot of information as we try to assess your family's financial strength and ability to contribute educational expenses."

Upon seeing how much information is necessary to fill out the online form, many students leave the application to their parents.

"My parents filled my FAFSA, but I can definitely see it as being intimidating," freshman Leonard Barrett said. "They could make it shorter so it doesn't discourage people from applying because some people just assume that they won't get any help."

Among a number of objections to the content of the form, inaccurate estimations are also scaring off some potential applicants.

"I don't plan on filling the form out at all," Hickman High School senior Kendall Martin said. "A lot of the students I have talked to said that the FAFSA overestimated what the family could actually pay, and they could definitely shorten the form."

Another popular objection to the form is its lack of information regarding cost of living expenses.

Brooks compared two families, one in Columbia and one in New York, where the parent earns $40,000 annually. Despite differences in the cost of living between the two cities, reviewers view the two incomes similarly, Brooks said.

In tough economic times, more students and their parents are choosing to ignore these faults and fill out the form. The Department of Education reported that by Feb. 15, it had already received 20 percent more applications than at this time last year.

Because events such as College Goal Sunday -- an open workshop for students and their parents to learn specifics on how to fill out the application -- are being held, and the Internet is buzzing with hundreds of help sites, students may want to rethink skipping out on an application.

"During the 2007-08 aid year, MU awarded just over $155 million in aid from federal aid sources to over 14,000 of our students based on the data provided on the FAFSA," Brooks said. "It is worth completing the form."

The deadline to fill out the FAFSA is March 1.