MILWAUKEE — Changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as the FAFSA, are bringing more initial challenges than anticipated. 

Three years ago, Congress mandated the Department of Education make the FAFSA quicker, easier and more accessible to students and families. 

“The changes in the FAFSA form, we’ve known, has been coming for years,” Ericca Pollack said, who is the college access coordinator for Milwaukee Public Schools. “We attended some trainings this summer in Washington D.C. with Federal Student Aid, looking at what timelines we needed to adjust.”

After several delays, the new form underwent a soft launch on Dec. 30, three months later than the normal Oct. 1 release. Due to the gradual rollout of the 2024-2025 FAFSA, it was only accessible at limited times. Students and parents reported long wait times to fill out the form and the crashes on the website due to overwhelm. 

18-year-old Raha Ibrahim had the latter happen to her. She is a senior at South Division High School.

“The questions were not as complicated as I thought they would be, but I did come up with some issues,” she said. “The website crashed on me once and it was probably because there were so many people accessing the FAFSA at one time so, I had to start over and re-enter my information.”

The goal is to change the form for the better. These changes, in part, are meant to expand the number of low-income students who qualify for the Pell Grant. 

A new formula also protects more of a student’s, or family’s, income from being used to determine how much federal aid is offered. Despite initial challenges, Pollack said the new form will be worth the wait.

“It makes Pell Grant eligibility more transparent and about 10,000 more students in Wisconsin will be eligible for Pell Grants with the new calculations,” she said. “One of the great things about this new FAFSA is that it has a parent wizard built in, so students and families can answer a few questions and it will let them know who has to give their financial information.”

The MPS District also instituted FAFSA completion as a requirement for seniors last year.   

“This requires a student or family to have a conversation about the FAFSA with a school adviser,” Pollack said. “Families can still opt out of the FAFSA after that conversation, but we don’t want our families to be foreclosing on college before knowing what financial resources are available.”

Pollack said the MPS District’s class of 2023 had a 13% increase in FAFSA completion compared to the previous school year, a 62.4% completion rate compared to 50.1%, respectively.

“Currently, Milwaukee is higher than the state and national average,” Pollack said.

The Department of Education reported on Jan. 8 that the new FAFSA form is now available 24/7 to students and families. More than 1 million 2024-2025 FAFSA forms have been submitted so far.

“For students who have challenging parental relationships, or who are experiencing housing insecurities, there are new routes in this FAFSA that will give them additional access to funds,” Pollack said.

As an independent student, Ibrahim said the filing process was simpler. She advised other students to complete it sooner rather than later and utilize the support networks they may have access to.

“You really don’t have to worry about filling out the FAFSA if you have this kind of support,” she said. “It’s okay to ask for help.”

MPS is dedicating February and March to FAFSA support for students. Pollack said three hours of support per week will be provided to students in the afternoon and evening throughout the district. 

She said the main deadlines students need to pay attention to with regard to the FAFSA are scholarship deadlines and deadlines for each individual college they are applying to. 

The most critical step to completing the FAFSA is creating a Federal Student Aid ID. Pollack said MPS has been working on this with students all year.