As college students across the country wind up for the 2025-2026 FAFSA cycle, the aftershocks of the ’24-’25 FAFSA are still ringing in their ears. Last year’s FAFSA cycle, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, was historically bad. So bad it made the news, with Forbes dubbing it a “failure” and countless other news outlets reporting on the chaos.
Here at MCLA, where more than 85% of students rely on some amount of financial aid, Bonnie Howland, Director of Student Financial Services, had a front row seat to the circus.
“The FAFSA is designed to give students access to the largest source of financial aid, such as federal grants, college work-study and loans,” said Howland, in an email interview. “A student and parent (if a dependent student) must both sign the FAFSA. Once it is processed by the Department of Education, the information is sent to the college. A baseline number … is given to the college. [It’s] a calculated dollar amount that demonstrates whether a student has the need for financial aid.”
Howland’s office is responsible for processing all the FAFSA information for the college, ensuring students get access to the funds they need. That is, when everything is going smoothly. During last year’s cycle, Howland, and her team, were instead swinging from periods of intense problem-solving and frenetic activity to long, tense inactive periods, waiting to see what would happen next for their students.
“[We] kept on top of announcements and changes as they were made,” said Howland. “We would prepare as much as we could while waiting for the next step to roll out and continued doing training and outreach for students.”
Most Americans only saw the chaotic results of the cycle. So, what actually happened?
At its’ simplest, the U.S. Department of Education tried to make getting federal financial aid easier for students.
“The ‘old FAFSA’ consisted of over 100 questions, and generated an Expected Family Contribution (EFC),” she said. “The term was confusing for families, considering it was not the actual amount of money that a student actually paid out of pocket for school.”
The EFC was actually “a measure of how much the student and his or her family can be expected to contribute to the cost of the student’s education for a given award year,” according to the FAFSA website. It took students’ income, along with their families’, into account, as well as the number of family members currently enrolled in college.
The new FAFSA form, designed based on laws enacted in the FAFSA Simplification Act, part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, did away with the EFC and more than half of the questions. The new form also pulls in data from the IRS, aiming to reduce the question count and make filing faster, and increased the number of college students may include on their application from 10 to 20.
Perhaps the most drastic change is the replacement of the EFC with the Student Aid Index, or SAI. The SAI is a modified version of the formula used to calculate aid eligibility, aiming to expand assistance for students from low-income families.
It’s a worthy endeavor, but disappointingly, not every student benefits from the “new FAFSA,” says Howland. “[T]he new application does not consider the number of family members in college like the old FAFSA. The EFC had the number in college built into the formula, where the SAI does not.”
For families with multiple children close in age, it’s a harsh blow. Putting one student through school is expensive enough, already. Forget two, or three, or four.
Still, the “new FAFSA” might have had a less news-worthy introduction if there hadn’t been a crippling array of errors and issues in its’ roll out.
“A standard opening for the FAFSA form is October 1 of each year,” Howland said. “The Department of Education had many delays due to programmatic errors, formula errors and technical fixes. Making the FAFSA easier and streamlined clearly made the behind the scenes processing more difficult and was out of the control of the individual college Financial Aid offices.”
The ’24-’25 cycle opened on December 30, 2023, three months late, and it only got worse from there. A glitch in the system made submitting impossible for millions of students nationwide, especially those whose parents have no Social Security Number. If students cleared the hurdle of submitting, they still weren’t out of the woods, as nearly 30% of applications had calculation errors, according to FAFSA’s website. A further 16% had student errors, or mistakes made by students, that were known but left uncorrectable for weeks as the Department of Education toyed with the coding of the online form which allowed applicants to fix them.
Colleges had no way of issuing financial aid offers students until the issues were addressed, leaving both institutions and students waiting around as days ticked by and deadline crept closer.
“Admissions Offices moved acceptance deadlines and outreach campaigns to get students to complete their FAFSA, but not all students were successful,” she said.
Here at MCLA, she and her team worked to provide students as much training and assistance as possible in filling out the form, as well as trying to alleviate some of the pressure from the swap to the SAI.
“We have a process in the office to review the students that were affected negatively by that change,” said Howland, “and can adjust if we are able to see a glaring change in the numbers.” Their work only goes so far, however. “Sometimes there are no adjustments to be made if the income of the family did in fact go up and there were no other significant changes to the finances,” she said.
Despite the resilience of America’s students, the fraught FAFSA rollout brought measurable enrollment declines, as students and families simply did not have all the information available to make informed decisions. Colleges did their best to help, says Howland, but it wasn’t enough to combat the lack of information.
After such a fiasco, no one would blame her for shuddering at the thought of the upcoming ’25-’26 FAFSA cycle. Yet, Howland says she’s ready for it.
“FAFSA was simplified just by the reduction of questions,” she remarked. “I am optimistic that this year’s rollout will be much smoother.”
For their part, the Department of Education has said they are doing testing of the formula to ensure the calculations are working correctly, and that the glitches from last year have all been remedied before the new cycle is slated to open on December 1, 2024.
Despite her own optimism, Howland knows students may not share her positive outlook. She shared her advice ahead of the new cycle, saying: “FAFSA is slated to open for filing on December 1. Returning students should be ready to go in December and get it filed as soon as possible. If there are any issues, it will give us time to work through them in a timely manner. We are limited with some of our funding, so being on time is crucial.”
She and her team are ready to help students navigate filing for the 2025-2026 school year.
“SFS will be hosting FAFSA workshops in the spring for students that do not complete in December. We also have one on one appointments available to help with FAFSA completion upon its opening in December. Appointments may be scheduled on our website, www.mcla.edu/aid, after December 1, of course,” Howland says.
Her office isn’t just for returning MCLA students. SFS also provides help for FAFSA contributors, like parents or guardians, and enrolling students. You can get in touch with SFS by calling 413-662-5219 or emailing [email protected].
With the future of FAFSA uncertain, across the country, colleges and students alike are hoping for the best and fortifying themselves for the worst. At MCLA, students can breathe a little easier, knowing Howland and her team are on their side.
