It’s widely thought the task of applying for college financial aid will become considerably easier for students and their families with the Obama administration’s just-announced move to allow early filing of the Federal Student Aid form, or FAFSA, starting fall 2016 for the 2017-18 academic year.
Rather than FAFSA form filing taking place after January 1, 2017, with families using their 2016 federal tax data, as would be the case under the traditional schedule, the Obama policy change will allow students and their families to file the form beginning October 1, 2016, along with use of their 2015 federal tax information. The FAFSA form filing period start date is permanently shifting to October 1 of the year prior to the academic year for which students are seeking financial aid.
“That means you won’t have to wait for months for your W-2s to arrive before you can get started, so you can get a jump on the college application process. You’ll know sooner how much aid you qualify for; you’ll have more time to evaluate your options,” President Obama told audience members at a Sept. 14 Town Hall on College Access and Affordability in Des Moines, Iowa.
Student advocates and experts say the policy change will prove especially beneficial for low-income and first-generation students. It’s estimated by the White House that 2 million Pell Grant-eligible students fail annually to apply for aid due largely to the lack of student understanding of how to negotiate the financial aid system.
“This [policy change] is an important step that will expand postsecondary education options for low- and middle-income students and increase their awareness that a college degree is an affordable goal,” Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, said in a statement.
She explained that “allowing students and their families to use ‘prior-prior year’ income in order to apply for federal student aid earlier in the college application process [has been] a long-sought policy change that has wide support in the higher education community.”
“Moving to ‘prior-prior year’ is a game-changer for our students,” Kim Cook, the Washington-based National College Access Network (NCAN) organization executive director, told Diverse.
