NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Rachel Burns, author of a new report assessing what changes to the Free Application for Federal Aid could mean for students in the 2024-25 academic year.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Applying to college is one thing. Applying for financial aid is a whole other thing. For years, there were complaints about the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which had more than 100 questions. Marie Kirima (ph) is a freshman at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and recently filled out FAFSA for the first time.
MARIE KIRIMA: Finding, like, the specific things that you needed to apply for it without being taught what those things are in class or in school was pretty hard for me.
RASCOE: In 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act with the goal of streamlining the form and expanding financial aid. The revisions will be finalized later this year. The overhaul will make a difference, benefiting an estimated 220,000 more students. That’s according to a new report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Rachel Burns wrote the report. She’s a senior policy analyst with the association and joins us now. Welcome, and thank you for being here.
RACHEL BURNS: Thank you so much. I’m glad to be here.
RASCOE: FAFSA can be really overwhelming, especially for a kid straight out of high school. Is it just that it’s less questions, or are the questions less complicated?
BURNS: So it’s essentially the same questions. It’s just that now, instead of a student having to fill out all of the financial questions, if they opt in to allowing the data to come directly from the Internal Revenue Service, all of those questions will be automatically filled in for them, and they won’t have to go in and input their own or their parents’ financial information.
RASCOE: OK. And what about the amount of aid individual students could get? Are you predicting that will change? Will they get…
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