UCI Podcast: Understanding the simplified FAFSA

In this episode of the UCI Podcast, director of Financial Aid & Scholarships, Becki Sanchez, and senior associate director of Financial Aid & Scholarships, Crystal Madaule, explain the changes found in the simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The podcast was recorded in the Antrepreneur Center’s podcast studio. To get the latest episodes delivered automatically, subscribe at:

Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Becki Sanchez, David Naimie, Crystal Madaule

From the University of California, Irvine, this is the UCI Podcast. I’m David Namie. Thank you for joining me. For this episode, we’re going to learn about the simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly known as the FAFSA. The FAFSA is used by students to apply for federal financial aid such as federal grants, work-study funds and loans. Submitting the FAFSA gives students access to the largest source of financial aid to help pay for their college education. In addition, many colleges and universities use FAFSA information to determine eligibility for state and school aid.

The FAFSA has been simplified for the 2024-2025 school year. In 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, allowing for major improvements in the application process. Changes include new formulas for calculating aid. The new FAFSA is intended to expand the Pell Grant to more students and will link eligibility to family size and the federal poverty level.

But the rollout of the new FAFSA hasn’t been without its challenges. The US Department of Education recently announced that colleges will not receive the first batch of data from the federal aid applications until mid-March, six weeks later than the expected date.

Joining me to talk more about the simplified FAFSA is the director of the UCI Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, Becki Sanchez, and her senior associate director Crystal Madaule. They will explain the changes found in the new FAFSA and the steps their office is taking to assist students with the financial aid process this year.

Becki, Crystal, thank you for joining me today.

Becki Sanchez

Thanks for having us.

Crystal Madaule

Happy to be here.

David Naimie

Becki, help us again with the basics. What again, is the FAFSA and what is it used for?

Becki Sanchez 

About how many students apply or submit the FAFSA every year?

Becki Sanchez 

The FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So, that’s what our students complete to know what type of federal student aid programs, state programs, and institutional aid programs. It lets the universities know what their financial need is. Our AB 540 eligible, or our Dreamers, they complete the CADAA, which stands for the California Dream Act application. And it’s the similar application that also allows us to provide them financial aid as well.

Becki Sanchez 

Seventeen million annually. But, here, at UCI, we have about 23,000 students who fill out the FAFSA or the CADAA. A lot.

David Naimie 

It’s a very large group of students that need this application. When is the deadline then to submit the FAFSA?

Becki Sanchez 

We are wanting our students – those that can complete the FAFSA – should be able to and we’d like them to complete it by March 4. And we understand there’s some different deadlines out there. But for most of our students, they should not have an issue completing it. It typically is taking about 10 minutes for most of our students, but we understand some of our populations are not able to complete the FAFSA. And so, we’re going to be very patient with them and be very generous, understanding that it’s very confusing. I know that the CSAC, which handles the Cal Grants, they’ve extended it to April 2. And so, certainly we are working with that date, but we’re really hoping that most of our families completed on the March deadline. So, just because financial aid takes so long, you know, throughout the summer to complete, we really feel like it’s going to benefit our students if they can fill it out to complete it early.

David Naimie 

Crystal, what is different about the FAFSA now that it’s been simplified?

Crystal Madaule 

Well, certainly as Becki said, 10 minutes is about the average time it takes. So most students that have completed a FAFSA before will be pleasantly surprised to see that the maximum before is about 102 questions. And most families will now be answering about 18 questions. So, a big reduction in the amount of questions that they have to slog through. And, then, before it was optional to use the IRS, what they called DRT Data Retrieval Tool. They’ve changed the name but it links their FAFSA application directly to the IRS and their federal tax information. And so, it eliminates the human error issue – the cat stepping on the keyboard and entering an extra zero. So, it’s going to minimize those human errors, completing the application. And, then, with that reduction in questions, we’re happy to see two questions fall off. One was the the males between the ages of 18 and 26, registering for Selective Service. They’re not asking that question anymore. And they’re no longer asking questions about drug convictions in a student’s past.

Becki Sanchez

I think one thing that we are a little sad to see go is the question on where our students plan to be housing. Yeah, so, we set the student aid budget based on where they plan on living. And they’re not asking the question this year – we’re hoping for it to come back for 2025-2026. But for 2024-2025, we’re going to need to make some assumptions and, then, go back and verify with our students, which we feel like it’s an unnecessary thing to have to go out and ask your students. So ,again, we’re hoping it comes back for 2025-2026. But that is one thing that we’ve been a little disappointed about.

David Naimie

I understand the reduction in the questions and the saving of time and the importing of data information from the IRS into the application, itself. I can see all of that being simpler and better. What else is good about these changes that are benefiting our students?

Crystal Madaule

Well, the largest benefit is that changes to the methodology used to calculate a student aid index means that, nationwide, we’re anticipating about 610,000 additional low income students will qualify for a Pell Grant that have never qualified before, as well as an additional 1.5 million students qualifying for the maximum Pell grant amount for 2024-2025. So, those are big numbers. Nationwide, there’s about 5.2 million Pell Grant recipients. So, really expanding access to that valuable program is what we’re anticipating the most positive outcome to be.

David Naimie

Becki, I understand there have been delays in receiving the FAFSA. I think this comes to us in something called an ISIR. What might be the impact as far as packaging and awarding aid because of these delays?

Becki Sanchez

I mean, as far as the delay, I can’t imagine how our families must feel right now, especially, you know, our first-generation students who maybe haven’t had a sibling complete a FAFSA and their parents haven’t completed a FAFSA. They haven’t applied for financial aid. And so, understanding that this is really very frustrating for them. And we are in the same boat as that we feel that same frustration. But the ISIR is the response from the FAFSA. And so, like you said earlier, we normally received that at the end of January, and we’re not expecting that until mid-March. So, for financial aid offices, nationwide, we’re just, you know, kind of floored at how long it’s taking to get the information. But keeping in mind, the Department of Education hasn’t overhauled the FAFSA in 40 years. So that’s, you know, a heavy lift for them. And so, we understand that, but we still feel very frustrated because we can’t provide our families with what they need in order to know what the affordability factor will be going to university. So, you know, we’re just going to be there for them. I think the responses, you know, we normally send new students, their aid packages in March, they won’t receive them until around mid-April. And so, you know, we are trying to get it to them as soon as possible. And, you know, with also making sure that our vendors and all of them have the correct software, and they’ve done the testing necessary to get everything up and running and give accurate aid awards.

David Naimie

So, a long time ago, I was a financial aid student, myself. So, I understand how important it is to know what your financial aid offer could be before you make a decision to attend. So, tell me also about this extension of the accepting admission deadline called the Statement of Intent to Register. That’s been extended, as well.

Becki Sanchez

Yes, the UCs have extended their Statement of Intent to Register to May 15. It’s normally May 1 to have that decision day, but they’ve extended it due to the delays in the FAFSA. And that’s in part because we understand how important it is for our students to have their financial aid offer, have enough time to review it, talk about it with their families, understand the affordability and the costs involved in going to a university. And so, we’re happy that the UCs have made that move. And, you know, and then it’s back in our lap to make sure we put those offers out and that’s our top priority. We care very much for our students and understand how stressful financial aid can be, Finances is probably one of the most stressful things a family will do when they’re entering into college .. is understanding that affordability factor.

David Naimie

Very true. Crystal back to you on this. There’s been a different headline almost every day it seems about the FAFSA rollout. What are three things students need to know now?

Crystal Madaule

We are adjusting when necessary. We’re communicating and we will be generous. We understand. It’s beyond your control. It’s beyond our control. So, don’t panic. If you can get in and do the FAFSA, please do. And if you are delayed because of technical challenges that are outside of anything we have control over, just please do it as soon as you can. Adding on to that, don’t wait, this is not the year to wait. Don’t delay. Gather your information, be prepared. With the elimination of the housing question, we will also be asking students to confirm where they plan to live .. their housing plans for 2024-2025. So, they’ll check their requirements that we’re asking students to complete. And just don’t wait, this is not the year to wait till the last minute to submit anything that we may need to complete their application or to start and submit their application.

David Naimie

And one more thing..

Crystal Madaule

A third thing would be those special populations of students that are having those challenges is to just keep in touch with us. The Department of Education, we have it available on our website, they’re publishing a list of all the known issues, as well as when those issues are resolved. So, we’ll be communicating with those special groups that we’re aware of or impacted. And don’t panic and don’t wait certainly applies to that group, as well. And we’ll be in touch. We receive new information every day. We’re advocating through every possible channel available to us, as part of the UC system, with the Department of Education to make them aware of the situation of students in California and particularly for us at UC Irvine. So, don’t wait, don’t panic and keep in touch – monitor your emails.

Becki Sanchez 

Yeah, we just really want our students to know that we care. And that we’re with them on this. We have their back. And, you know, we’re going to be here the whole way through and making sure we communicate everything we know at the point we know. Sometimes, it changes daily, but as soon as we know the information, we’re trying to push it out to our students.

David Naimie 

Knowing the two of you and just hearing what we’re talking about today, I know how deeply you care about helping these students that we serve. But being this is the first year of the new FAFSA rollout, how is the whole Office of Financial Aid Scholarships working to assist students with these changes?

Becki Sanchez

Well, we’re making sure, first and foremost that we’re available. We want to make sure that students have access to us. They can call our main phone number and they can get in the queue. And, you know, sometimes, it takes a few hours because we have over 30,000 students attending here, but they will get a live person to speak to on the same day, They will have an opportunity to talk to us and ask whatever they want. And there’s no bad questions at this point because we’re all kind of navigating this new space together and trying to get through that. Another way that we’re doing that, we’re obviously sending out communications. We’ve already communicated with our continuing students about the changes in the FAFSA and some of the delays that are happening. We’ve already reached out to our new student population that applied to attend here and so has the University of California Office of the President. They’ve also sent communications out to all the applicants. So, communicating often, being available and just making sure that our students know that they can contact us. We have a QLess Kiosk where they can have an in-person appointment. They can have a Zoom appointment, basically reaching students where they are. And I know Crystal will want you to talk about our new ZotAid portal that’s gonna be coming online.

Crystal Madaule

Behind the scenes, yes, to launch a new student portal, a new student interface. It’s gonna include a very clear financial aid offer, which breaks out their grants, scholarships, loans, work study …a very simplified way for them to understand what their costs will be, what aid they qualify to receive, where they’ll upload their documents, review information, any outstanding tasks that they may need to complete their application. Continuing students will certainly feel the facelift that it’s gone through. It’s much more user-friendly, intuitive, easy to navigate, and it just looks more modern. So, we’re excited to launch ZotAid as part of the simplification of financial aid.

Becki Sanchez

I think our students are going to find it to really be adding to their student experience. It has a lot of transparency that I think maybe our old system was lacking. So, we’re excited to be able to launch ZotAid this fall.

David Naimie 

So, simplifications happening also not just in the FAFSA, but in the services we try to provide for our students. Very nice.e

Becki, Crystal, this has been very informative. Thank you for helping us understand the simplified FAFSA and how the office of financial aid scholarships is supporting our students with these changes.

To learn more about the simplified FAFSA, please visit the website studentaid.gov. Students can also contact the UCI Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships directly for help with their questions. The number to call is 949 824-8262.

The UCI podcast is a production of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the University of California, Irvine. I’m David Namie. Thank you for listening.