PUBLISHED: 03-30-09

Editor’s Note

Good riddance, FAFSA

Besides that whole thing about entering the real world and never having to go to class again, there’s one thing I’m particularly excited about come graduation time: Never having to touch or deal with the FAFSA ever again. Ah, relief!

This six-page form crammed with more than 100 questions was instituted back in the early 1990s and has been a main source of frustration for students looking for financial aid for more than a decade. Now, I couldn’t be happier to be done with it. Even though I have never filled it out myself—my parents simply don’t trust me enough—I always knew to keep my distance from my dad while he spent hours filling out that stupid form.

So as frustrations have been building over the past decade and more students and families are in search of tuition help now, the government is finally coming to students’ rescue.

President Barack Obama has tasked the U.S. Department of Education to pursue new options for students applying for financial aid, including getting rid of the form altogether to simplify the process.

It’s about time, folks. Besides being a general pain in the tuckus, the FAFSA—the free application for student aid—just doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. It’s often inaccurate in deciphering financial worth, the deadlines for submission don’t coincide with tax filing ones and some families are so intimidated by it that they don’t apply for it, even the lower-income families who could benefit the most from it.

By Feb. 15, more than 2,213,408 forms had flooded the Department of Education, 20 percent more than at this time last year, according to The New York Times. What does this mean? There are about 20 percent more people in this country with bald spots from pulling their hair out over this stupid form or about 20 percent more people looking for the Department of Education staff’s heads on a stick. Look out, Arne Duncan.

So, one option on the table is to streamline the process by cutting the six-page form down to two pages, with about 30 questions instead of 100. Congress attempted to simplify the process last year, but, because they are such an efficiently run group of folks, they only managed to add more questions to the form. Nice job, everyone.

Another option would allow the Internal Revenue Service to share filers’ information directly with the Department of Education, cutting out the middle man. But there’s just one issue: those wacky deadlines. Filers can submit their forms beginning in January, but most don’t even file their taxes until April. As the months go by and students don’t submit their FAFSA, they lose more potential financial aid each day.

The point is that parents are losing their jobs, and people who may have never filled out a FAFSA in years past are now scrambling to figure it all out. Colleges can offer all the workshops and hotline help they want to assist students with filling out the form, but if we can’t even figure out what information we need to fill it out, it’s practically worthless.

My advice to all of you who will still be married to it for the next few years is to utilize every resource possible to fill out the form to the best of your ability. If you make a mistake, it could cost you major money. And when you get frustrated, step back and ask for help. Or you could always have a bake sale and pony up the $80 to have someone else do it for you.

For all of you who are graduating and never have to deal with this crap again, I propose we get together and build a FAFSA bonfire at Manifest in May to give it a proper send-off. You bring the lighter fluid, and I’ll make the trip to Kinkos. Deal?

The deadline for submitting your FAFSA at Columbia is June 1. Check out these resources for help filling out your FAFSA: Fafsa.com, which offers free video tutorials and hotline help, as well as an $80 service to fill it out for you; Colum.edu/SFS, which now has the “virtual advisor” to answer questions about financial aid and also a list of important dates to remember regarding financial aid; or Fafsa.ed.gov/Help, the government’s free website with step-by-step directions and troubleshooting help.

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