Correction appended
College students may soon get a break on their financial aid applications if a new bill intended to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid passes in Congress.
Frankie Solomon, a sophomore in the School of Communication, said he dreads applying for financial aid this time of year.
"It's pretty tedious, and I tend to only be able to do it last minute," he said. "When my family files for new taxes, I have to go back and edit it."
The fact that students often need to fill out FAFSA forms before their family files for taxes means they often have to go back and correct them. The Department of Education estimates FAFSA forms should only take an hour to complete. A team of Harvard economists, however, found it took approximately 10 hours for the average family to complete, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Reps. George Miller, D-Calif., and Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., recently introduced the "College Aid Made EZ Act," an attempt to simplify the FAFSA process. If Congress passes the bill, parents can check a box while filing their taxes that will also send all their financial information to the Department of Education. This will eliminate three of the application's five pages, according to the Committee of Education and Labor's Web site. The remaining questions will be mainly personal.
"The application process for federal college aid could confuse even tax experts, let alone students and parents," Miller said in a press release. "It is ridiculous that major companies can fill out a 13-question form to apply for a million-dollar loan, but students and parents must answer over 100 questions to apply for college financial assistance."
Emma Wojtowicz, a sophomore in SOC, said she welcomes the prospect of an easier FAFSA.
"I basically have to guess because we haven't filed our taxes yet," she said. "If I didn't have to do that, it would make everything so much easier."
The Department of Education understands it is likely to face error when students are answering questions about income, according to Sherri Mikols, associate director of AU's Financial Aid office. As a result, colleges need to collect tax returns from at least 30 percent of these students to verify accuracy. Mikols said she believes this bill will help correct this problem.
"Allowing students to automatically have the IRS tax data added to their FAFSA would both simplify the process for the student and improve the reliability of the data," she said.
The bill also includes stipulations that will help improve the process of applying for financial aid, such as improving the Web site's speed and allowing juniors in high school to apply for financial aid.
Correction: In "Bill proposes tax forms should substitute for portions of FAFSA," Frankie Solomon was misidentified as male. Solomon is female.
