The U.S. Department of Education released an updated version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid in an attempt to make it easier for current and prospective college students to apply for federal financial aid for their post-secondary education.
The 2010-2011 FAFSA, which became available Jan. 1, has 22 fewer questions than its predecessor. The forms no longer require low-income students to provide asset information since it is not used to determine their aid eligibility, according to the Department of Education.
Applicants who have changed their address within the last five years will be required to answer questions about their states and dates of legal residency. Questions regarding veterans’ benefits have been entirely removed because they no longer affect eligibility for other federal aid, according to the Department of Education.
Each academic year, 16 million students and their families submit a FAFSA. Before this year’s update, some applicants had to answer more than 150 questions — some of which had little or no effect on their actual financial aid packages.
Hilary Donnell, a freshman in the School of Communication, said the Department of Education should be careful when choosing whether to eliminate questions from the FAFSA.
“I think it’s important that they correctly assess whether the person needs or deserves financial aid,” Donnell said. “If it makes it harder for them to make an educated decision, then it’s bad.”
The online version of the FAFSA, which is used by 98 percent of applicants, was also redesigned to make navigation shorter and more user-friendly.
Julie Grace Brufke, a sophomore in SOC, said these changes can help students by giving them more time to devote for other priorities.
“When you’re a student, you’re busy. You don’t have time to fill out all this stuff; you’ve got enough on your course load,” Brufke said. “The more college-educated people we have the more successful businesses are going to be.”
Congress is working on a bill that would further simplify the FAFSA. The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009, by a mostly party-line vote of 253-171 on Sept. 17, according to the Library of Congress.
If enacted, the bill would further decrease the number of questions the FAFSA would ask about students’ assets and allow students to answer questions about their financial circumstances through supplying the financial information already found on their tax returns, according to the Department of Education.
The bill was referred Sept. 22 to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
You can reach this staff writer at hperlman@theeagleonline.com.
