There have been many changes to the Free Application For Federal Student Aid this year.  It was delayed for a third time just this month.  These delays have impacted the students at Greeley West High School. 

The year-long effort to simplify the FAFSA application was delayed another time meaning that upcoming undergraduates will not get their financial aid offer from colleges until April. The application opened on December 30th, 2023 after being delayed twice before. “The federal agency said it will begin sending applicant data to college in March two months later than originally planned,” the Washington Post’s Danielle Douglas-Gabriel said. 

Greeley West students have been in a tug-o-war with the FAFSA application getting kicked out of the application many times. Senior Chelsie Roberts explained her struggles while attempting to fill out the FAFSA.  “What I struggled with was it would keep kicking me out because there were too many people (online). This made filling it out feel more like a hassle and I kept putting it off…which just frustrated me,” Roberts explained. 

Perhaps the biggest problem of filling out the FAFSA form this year was not even being able to fill it out in the first place. AVID teacher Ms.Lea Sanford explained her struggles with the FAFSA from a teacher’s perspective and how it has made her feel. “Helping students on the teacher’s side of it, we ran into all kinds of technical issues to the point where some people are having to do it by paper and mail it in,” Sanford said. “It frustrates me…when the federal government is messing with students’ federal aid that for a lot of them means going to college or not.” 

Since FAFSA has been pushed back until March, Greeley West Futures Center advisor Ms. Alma Rodriguez explained how she tries to help students with the FAFSA with the constant delays. “When meeting with seniors, the first thing I let them know is that FAFSA is still in its trial-and-error phase…I let them know firsthand that there is a lot going on with it. I want to make them as comfortable with it (FAFSA) as I can,” Rodiguez explained. 

Rodiguez also explained how the constant delays with FAFSA had made her feel when helping out seniors with the form. “…It being a new application we get communication about the updates, but sometimes it’s not the news we want to hear. It causes stress because it changes different things for different students which gives me anxiety when I meet with parents,” Rodriguez said.