FAFSA Just Got Even Easier

While the rollout of “Better FAFSA” the year before last was a little bumpy, the federal government worked the bugs out and the simplified application makes applying for financial aid easier than ever. What used to be a cumbersome process can often be done in 30 minutes.

Now, a couple of new updates from Federal Student Aid presages an even easier process for prospective college students.

One complaint that counselors often have is that when they’re working with students, they have to wait between when the students sign up for a studentaid.gov account and when the students can actually complete their FAFSA. The two steps could not previously be done on the same day.

That meant that FAFSA completion activities or events were often stymied by the delay between these two steps, leaving students only partway to their goal of finding out what financial aid they qualify for.

Well, according to FSA, that is the case no longer. For the FAFSA season currently underway, students and parents will be able to set up their studentaid.gov account and complete their FAFSA on the same day. This removes a key hurdle to getting students all the way through the FAFSA process. And as we know, any hurdle to completion can often become a barrier for students if enough time elapses.

Students will be able to get real-time confirmation and fix any errors immediately.

The only caveat to all of this is that it requires a Social Security Number. Without one, the FAFSA won’t import tax information and there will be no real-time verification.

The second big change is in how the contributor process takes place.

A quick point of definition: the contributor is usually the spouse, parent or any other legal guardian whose financial situation will be taken into account when determining how much financial aid a student qualifies for.

Previously, a student had to have quite a bit of sensitive information about the contributor to complete the FAFSA. In addition to the contributor’s email, they needed to get their Social Security Number and birthdate. Those are also key data points that any scammer would love to get their hands on, so it’s easy to see how some contributors would be wary of handing that information over.

In addition to security concerns, the more stringent requirements necessitated students going in search of the requisite information, creating an extra step before they could complete their FAFSA.

Now that will no longer be the case. All a student needs for the contributor process is the contributor’s email.

The student invites the contributor by entering their email. The contributor will receive an email with a code for verification. It’s as simple as that.

In addition, if the contributor didn’t get the email, the student can log into their account to get the code. And the email address for the contributor doesn’t need to match the email they used to set up the account. The code doesn’t expire, and the student can revoke the code at any time.

To the uninitiated, these might seem like minor and relatively obvious improvements to the FAFSA process. But to the counselors in the trenches and the students tackling what seems like a daunting process, these changes will make an enormous difference in FAFSA completions.

So, students are looking at a FAFSA that is dramatically simpler than previous iterations, and hopefully that means even more students will realize their dreams of higher education.