Free College Money - Why is it So Hard to Apply For?
college money
Why is it harder to apply for financial aid and free college money than it is to do your taxes? We have been hearing about simplifying the financial aid process, so why can we not seem to do it? Why does it have to be so hard?
Those are good questions, and worth looking into. I have been saying for years that financial aid should not be so hard. It is hard on the students and parents trying to get it, and hard on the financial aid administrators trying to administer it. The system is cumbersome and confusing.
In my perfect world, I envision a student applying for financial aid like we currently apply for credit cards: just one SIMPLE online application. From that information, the Department of Education (ED from here on) would determine their eligibility, and apply that amount to their new “ED account”. ED would then mail the student a debit card connected to the account. The student could take that debit card to the school of their choice. Swipe and tuition is covered. Swipe and books are paid for. It is a beautiful thought, but there is no way for it to work. “Why not?”, you may ask. Here is just one of the reasons why.
There are over 7000 federal regulations that deal with financial aid. You may have heard the saying, “It would take an act of Congress to do that.”. Well, since these regulations are written into law, it actually does take an act of Congress to change the financial aid process. In and among these federal regulations is an equation (or formula, or methodology) used to calculate a student’s or family’s ability to pay for school. This ability is called the student’s/family’s Expected Family Contribution (or EFC).
Imagine a large, complicated equation (or formula, or methodology). For our purposes, I will use this simple one below:
A + B / D x C = EFC (Expected Family Contribution) If the regulations dictate that this is the equation you must use in order to calculate a valid EFC, then you have to have some way of collecting the data for A, B, C and D, right? That is exactly what the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) does. It collects all (or most) of the information needed to calculate a valid EFC. So when someone asks, “Why are there so many questions on the FAFSA?”, I say, “Because those are the questions needed to fill in the blanks in the federally-regulated EFC equation.” And when they say, “I think we should simplify it and only ask 30 questions instead of 100.”, I say, “Great idea! But we will have to get Congress to change the EFC equation first, or no one will have a valid EFC, and no one will be eligible for financial aid.”
Clear as mud, right? The bottom line is, if you want it to be easier to apply for free college money, you will need to contact your elected officials and let them know about the problem.
By Tara Piantanida
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