Did Fort Worth schools dodge the worst of the FAFSA meltdown?
Earlier this year, as schools across the country struggled to deal with a botched overhaul of the federal student aid application system, education leaders in Fort Worth warned that the situation would derail the college plans of many graduating high school seniors.
But after high school counselors and college attainment specialists spent months helping students navigate a maze of delays, technical meltdowns and long hours spent listening to hold music, North Texas schools appear to have avoided the worst effects of the bungled rollout.
During the spring, Fort Worth area school districts posted declines as high as 50% in the number of students who had completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. But figures released earlier this month show declines closer to 10-15% — numbers that education leaders say aren’t ideal, but are nowhere near as dire as they once were.
David Ximenez, associate vice chancellor for enrollment and academic support services at Tarrant County College, said the community college district saw a 2.1% increase in the number of recent high school graduates enrolled for the fall semester, which started last week.
“It’s not great, but it’s better than a decline,” Ximenez said.
Botched FAFSA rollout left seniors frustrated
The issues stem from the Education Department’s rollout of the newly redesigned FAFSA. Department officials say the new form is shorter and easier to deal with than the old version, which included more than 100 questions.
But students didn’t get access to the new form until the end of December, about three months after they’d typically be able to begin working on it. Even then, technical glitches kept many students from submitting. Filing for student aid was a particularly difficult process for students in families where at least one parent was undocumented, because for months there was no way for parents without Social Security numbers to enter their financial information. Tarrant County students told the Star-Telegram that they regularly ended up on hold with the Education Department’s help line for hours.
Although federal education officials either fixed or introduced work-arounds for most of the issues, the headaches caused by the rollout of the revised FAFSA aren’t over. This month, Education Department officials announced the new form may not be released until Dec. 1, two months after its typical release date.
Ximenez said if the department actually releases a working FAFSA by Dec. 1, it won’t cause the college too many issues. Although the delay isn’t ideal, he said, it still leaves students with plenty of time to fill out the form and submit it, and the college’s financial aid office plenty of time to process those applications before the fall semester begins.
But if students run into the same problems they did this year, the challenge could be more daunting, Ximenez said. This year, the delays and technical issues left the college’s financial aid office with far less time to process paperwork, meaning financial aid award letters went out later than usual. The college usually begins sending those letters in February or March. This year, they didn’t go out until early in the summer.
FAFSA filings down 12% in Fort Worth
As of Aug. 9, FAFSA completions from high schools in Fort Worth were down about 12% compared to the same time last year, according to an analysis of federal student aid records by the nonprofit National College Attainment Network.
Any decline in filings represents fewer high school students taking the first steps toward going to college. But that 12% decline could actually be an encouraging sign. In April, Fort Worth high schools had a 44% decline in FAFSA filings compared to the same time last year, an indication that large numbers of students were still shut out of the filing process.
Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives for the National College Attainment Network, said the growth in FAFSA filings that happened in the spring is likely due to at least two factors: By that point, the Office of Federal Student Aid had smoothed out many of the problems, giving access to at least some students who had been locked out of the system. And high school counselors and college attainment organizations across the country were laser focused on helping students get their applications filled out before high school graduation.
But that momentum didn’t carry through the summer, DeBaun said. Once high school seniors graduate, it’s harder for them to access help with their financial aid applications. So “despite the Herculean efforts of states, districts, schools, and college access programs across the country,” DeBaun said, FAFSA filings are still down about 10% nationwide compared to last year.
It’s hard to predict how much of an impact the delayed release of next year’s FAFSA will have on the college aspirations of students who will graduate high school next summer, DeBaun said. On one hand, the delay compresses the filing process, forcing high school counselors to do about seven months’ worth of work in five months. But on the other hand, those counselors dealt with a timeline that was condensed even more this year, so they at least have an idea of what to expect, he said. And assuming the 2025-26 form doesn’t have the same technical problems as this year’s version, the rollout should go more smoothly once the form goes live, he said.
DeBaun said it’s also important for recent high school graduates to understand that it isn’t too late for them to fill the application out. Students who don’t plan to start college until the spring semester have plenty of time to complete the form, he said, and some universities with rolling admissions are still accepting FAFSAs for the fall semester.
At TCC, for example, students who haven’t completed their FAFSAs could still enroll in late-start classes. The college’s registration deadline for 12-week classes is Sept. 12, so students still have a few weeks to submit their financial aid applications. Ximenez, the TCC official, said the college accepts financial aid applications for fall classes until the last day of the semester.
College enrollments climb, but not much
Jason Titus, managing director of programs for the T3 Partnership, said all of the colleges and universities the organization partners with saw increased enrollments this year, although the gains weren’t as big as college officials had hoped for.
But many of those colleges loosened their admissions standards this year, Titus said, meaning they admitted students who might not have made the cut otherwise. Less rigorous admissions requirements can lead to student retention issues, he said — some of those students who were admitted on the margins might not be prepared for college-level work. Colleges will need to be ready to support those students and make sure they have the help they need to succeed if they want to see them come back for their sophomore years, he said.
That support needs to come not just from the colleges themselves, but also from the broader community, Titus said. The T3 Partnership, also known as Tarrant To and Through, focuses on helping Tarrant County students get to college and graduate with a degree. Historically, college attainment organizations have focused on helping students get to college, and assumed colleges and universities could handle everything from there, he said.
But the FAFSA challenges have been a reminder of the need for broader support, Titus said. College students have to resubmit their financial aid applications each school year. Many students in Tarrant County’s colleges and universities will need help completing the application before next year’s deadline, even if they’ve done it before, he said.
That community support may be harder to provide next year, Titus said. As the FAFSA rollout progressed and problems compounded into a crisis, the Education Department sent $50 million in grant money to local organizations that help students complete their paperwork. T3 used a $240,000 grant to hire more staff members to work with students. By the end of the summer, the organization had helped more than 5,000 graduating seniors submit their financial aid applications, Titus said.
But there’s no indication that the Education Department will offer those grants again this year. That means T3 and other groups like it will be left with their permanent staff and any help they have from their partner organizations.
If the version of the FAFSA that the Education Department releases in December is unveiled on time and is free of bugs, T3 and its partner organizations will most likely be able to manage the delays without too many problems, Titus said. But if it has the same technical issues as this year’s rollout, there could be challenges ahead.
“I’m hoping it’s bug-free,” he said. “To be able to have FAFSA go back to being one of the important steps the student completes to get to college, as opposed to the biggest barrier to get to college, will be helpful.”
