Allana Vanin

The time of year that every student longs for (or dreads) has finally arrived: financial aid season. With tuition rates continuously rising all over the country, students are eager to fill out their applications and find out how much aid they are entitled to receive. But, with a new year comes new changes, and the FAFSA is no exception. 

Final changes of the FAFSA enacted, and Penn State Abington students react and reflect on how this will affect the future of their financial aid situation.

The Department of Education implemented its final phase of the Free Application of Federal Aid (FAFSA) in December of 2023, three years after enacting the FAFSA Simplification Act into law in 2021. These phases were being slowly released starting with the 21-22 award year and ending with the 24-25 award year. 

According to the official Federal Student Aid website “The FAFSA Simplification Act represents a significant overhaul of the processes and systems used to award federal student aid starting with the 2024–25 award year.” Some of the changes enacted include: 

• Replacing the expected family contribution with student aid index 
• Modifications to the family definitions in FAFSA formulas 
• Expanding access to Federal Pell Grants 

All of these modifications being meant to simplify and accelerate the application process. 

But how does this look in practice? 

Aedan Hevey, a sophomore biology major at Penn State, expressed a positive experience with the new version “I thought it was okay.” he states, “I thought the new version was pretty streamline and got through it quickly.”  

This differed from his experiences last year, where he expressed some difficulties while filling out the application with his parent due to a language barrier. He remains hopeful that this year with the changes he will be able to receive more aid. 

Another student, Tiffany Griffith, a junior English major, had some different thoughts. Whereas the Department of Education intended for these changes to be more practical, she thought the application was too minimal. “I feel uneasy because they did not ask for a lot of information.” she said. This brought up concerns about the amount of aid she has yet to receive. 

Griffith also felt that the application focused too much on the parent’s income instead of the student’s; “I pay for college not them” she stated, “They should take my salary into account.” 

When asked about any specific changes she hoped to see, she wished “They could offer more scholarship opportunities instead of loans or grants because they add up.” A concern many students, especially those approaching their graduation, share. 

Hevey, Griffith, and the rest of Penn State Abington now await their financial aid summaries. 

With the application open until June 30th, only time will tell what the result of this new and supposedly improved FAFSA will be.