I have been familiar with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for decades. It is more commonly known as FAFSA, or hell on Earth as those who have struggled with the process every year know it.
I remember my mother filling out the paper version when I was a college student. When several of my children were attending colleges, the chore fell to me. It was a nightmare. There would always be some glitch, some minor error that brought the effort to a halt. More times than not, I would forget the link to apply for funds through the state Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP. After checking figures provided by the colleges, I would realize that the TAP funds were missing. Then it was difficult to go back into the FAFSA form and figure out how to transfer the information to the state system.
But this year there were changes to the FAFSA that we were told would make it much easier. The government was so proud of its work that it registered the term “A Better 2024−25 FAFSA ®.” But as always seems to be the case, the form is now much more difficult. After filling out a portion of the application on my desktop computer, the system informed me that I would receive an email invitation to complete the second part of the form. It never came.
I called the customer service number for the FAFSA and after a long wait, I was connected to a staff member. She put me on hold three times while she checked what was wrong. She finally came back and said that with the new system, the student fills out the form first.
My daughter and I fumbled through the application but could not figure out how to add her information. So we deleted the application and filled out another, with her filling in her portion first. But again we could not get through the process. We called the FAFSA customer service number again and were told that with the problems in the new system, the only way to process the form is for the parent to fill out the form and then invite the student electronically to fill out the other part. That was the exact opposite of what we had been told on our first call.
We deleted the second application and filled out a third. This time we were able to get through the process and file the application. I was thrilled.
I was about to close out of the program when I noticed on the bottom of the last page was a link to fill out the state TAP application and transfer data from the FAFSA. I was relieved that I noticed it before I signing out. I clicked on the link. Nothing happened. I clicked again several more times. It wouldn’t work.
I hate the FAFSA.
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”Working It Out” is a column by City Editor Kevin Conlon that runs every week. Disclaimer: This is not an advice column. I am not an expert at anything. I rarely do things the easy way and the last thing you should do is follow my example.
