As John Champe seniors, as well as seniors around the country, fill out their college applications, most of them are also filling out their Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. In previous years, FAFSA forms were released in October of their senior year and took into account certain circumstances for each family that would provide better financial aid. Now this year, the FAFSA forms were released on December 31, and have changes to them that many families find would negatively affect them, such as no longer including a sibling discount.
These changes are to stay in place for the foreseeable future, and many students and families are doing their best to find out the most they can about this new process. “I had a teacher tell me a while back to try to gather as much information about it that I can,” senior Natalee Aikens said, “so that it could be a quicker process when it is released.”
The college application process is very stressful for students and their families, and the addition of changes to the FAFSA forms complicated it more this year. Still, hopefully, the coming years become less complex and the process will be more straightforward for applicants.
