The FAFSA is more relevant now than ever to high school seniors — and even some early graduating juniors — preparing for college. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is a form that can determine your eligibility for financial aid including grants, scholarships, work-study programs, and federal student loans. Yet for many students, this process has become just as confusing as it is essential. The program is meant to make higher education more accessible, which is difficult when the process itself hardly is.
Rather than a form to help with college, the FAFSA almost feels like a test. The entire process seems to be testing students’ patience, breaking points, and mental capacity with all the obstacles it has continued to possess over the years. Between its confusing questions, technical glitches, and the way it boxes students into fixed categories that rarely mirror real life, it is easy to see how students get lost in the maze that the FAFSA has become.
In 2024, almost $4.4 billion dollars in Pell Grant money were left unclaimed by eligible students — not because they didn’t need it, but because they couldn’t make it through.
Many people can look past the confusing wording and crashing website, but it is much different to be asked to explain your entire life in numbers that don’t quite show the full story. The FAFSA is a one-size-fits-all process that assumes stability where it might not always be present.
“My parents are in the process of separating, and my dad has all of our tax information. He isn’t here right now, so I am currently unable to fill out the FAFSA,” said Tristan Yates, a Lincoln East senior waiting to fill out the form. “I believe it’s a discriminatory process. Because, in a situation like mine, what am I supposed to do? Wherefore art thou FAFSA tax information?”
Situations like this aren’t rare. Many students are estranged from a parent, don’t have their parents’ taxing info, or just can’t fit neatly into the FAFSA’s narrow definitions. I’m no exception to this either. Right now, my family situation is so complex that even I am unsure where exactly I should go from here.
But, all of this isn’t to say that the FAFSA is evil and entirely broken. It has opened doors for millions of students and has made college possible for families who otherwise couldn’t afford it. Although $4.4 billion dollars went unclaimed, the FAFSA still proceeded to give out $256.7 billion dollars during the 2023-24 school year. That is life-changing money for the almost 10 million students it reached.
“I didn’t get any money from the FAFSA” said October Nesja, who just started her freshman year at UNL.
But, to admit the good is to also see the bad. The FAFSA is still a flawed system. The form’s structure continues to leave out students who don’t fit its expectations — in turn leaving out vital money for these students’ futures. For some, the FAFSA may be an open door. But until the form is fixed to be more flexible, for many it is left as a wall.
