Emmanuel Gil-Gonzalez’s parents immigrated from Mexico with the hope of giving their children a better life.
Gil-Gonzalez, 17, studied automotive technology at Denver’s Fred N. Thomas Career Education Center Early College and almost scrapped applying to college to dive straight into working on cars. But with guidance from his school, he decided he wanted to learn how to build engines instead of just repairing them.
The teen set his sights on studying mechanical engineering at the University of Denver and worked hard to become a finalist for the prestigious Boettcher Foundation and Daniels Fund scholarships.
Now, though, he worries he won’t be able to go to college at all due to a federal financial aid fiasco impacting students and colleges in Colorado and across the country.
This academic year, the U.S. Department of Education changed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the online form known as FAFSA that determines how much federal financial aid a student can receive toward their college education based on their family’s income. The changes were supposed to bring about a more streamlined process that would provide more money to students and families.
However, the rollout of the application has been plagued with delays and glitches that have left students uncertain about how much financial aid they will receive as deadlines to commit to colleges loom, prompting some to wonder whether they can afford to go at all.
“There were a lot of snafus in the process,” said Angie Paccione, executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education. “It became not better, but actually more difficult.”
The bumpy launch has financial aid experts concerned about disruptions to college enrollment that could rival the pandemic’s negative impact. Across the country, undergraduate college enrollment fell 8% from 2019 to 2022, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. Colorado’s public higher education institutions recorded a 5.2% enrollment drop from fall 2019 to fall 2020, according to state data.
Coloradans received $335.9 million in federal financial aid in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Leaders within the U.S. Department of Education said they are trying to alleviate the consequences of the FAFSA delays. The department said it was reducing verification requirements, sending federal experts to under-resourced schools and giving money for technical assistance to nonprofits.
“We are determined to get this right,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement this month. “We must, and we will.”
In a statement Thursday, Education Department officials noted students still have months to apply, and that the agency “is committed to ensuring all students have access to the aid they need to attain their higher education goals.”
More than 17 million students use the FAFSA every year to receive financial aid for their college education. Since the new 2024-25 form became available, nearly 4.5 million applications have been successfully submitted.
Normally by now, though, many students would know how much federal aid they can expect. The delay has led schools in Colorado and around the country, including Metropolitan State University of Denver and the entire University of California and California State University systems, to push back the deadlines by which students must commit if they plan to attend this fall.
“Has this all been for nothing?” Gil-Gonzalez said. “It’s a big deciding factor of my future that I can’t control. It sucks. Will the cycle begin again? My parents brought their kids here for a better life, and I might end up just repeating the cycle.”
College enrollment concerns
For years, the annual FAFSA form has rolled out in October, said Emily Weiss, the Denver Scholarship Foundation’s lead college adviser at CEC Early College.
In light of the changes made to the form — which include requiring parents to create their own FAFSA accounts and expanding Pell Grant eligibility to more students — the new application period didn’t open until Dec. 31.
Almost immediately, Weiss began to notice glitches. In years past, students or parents without a Social Security number could fill in zeroes under that question, but this year, students like Gil-Gonzalez whose parents don’t have a Social Security number could not get past that question.
To circumvent that, Weiss had students and families fill out a 21-page paper FAFSA form that they mailed to the U.S. Department of Education. A high percentage of CEC’s students and families don’t have Social Security numbers, Weiss said, which does not disqualify them from obtaining federal financial aid.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education posted a workaround that will allow students or parents without Social Security numbers to fill out the form, which will have to be corrected later once the department creates a more permanent solution.
“Every week, something is new and changing,” Weiss said. “I used to feel very confident to tell students what the right choice was, and I don’t feel that confident anymore, and it’s not for lack of our team not knowing what we’re doing. There are just so many barriers to higher education, in general, and to add more inadvertently in a system that’s supposed to be better — that’s tough.”
Adriana Aleman doesn’t know what tripped up her FAFSA form, but the CEC Early College senior couldn’t log into her account even when seeking help from Weiss.
“I have no extraordinary circumstances,” Aleman said. “I have all the resources and FAFSA just doesn’t want to let me fill it out.”
When the 17-year-old called a customer service line for help filling out the form, she was told they were receiving too many calls and couldn’t help her at that time.
“They just hung up on me,” Aleman said. “There is no communication about what’s happening.”
On top of trying to finish her senior year, now Aleman is filled with anxiety about her future.
“It’s important for me to fill out FAFSA,” she said. “I come from a lower-middle-class type of family with not enough money to get through college by myself. It makes me feel like I don’t have that sense of security of how I’m going to pay for my tuition.”
The state higher education department has offered workshops to help families fill out the federal financial aid form for years, but Paccione said those sessions have taken on a sense of urgency amid the FAFSA flub.
“The biggest problem for the students is this process is so delayed,” Paccione said. “Institutions usually distribute the financial aid now, but students are not getting their answer from the federal government as to how much they qualify for, so it’s putting students at risk of not getting aid they are entitled to, and they could decide to stop out or not enroll.”
How are colleges responding?
Colorado Mesa University could not take that risk, President John Marshall said.
The Grand Junction university primarily serves students from underrepresented communities, whether they be rural, low-income, first-generation college-goers or students of color, he said.
“That, of course, means they’re disproportionately reliant on financial aid,” Marshall said. “This conversation for some institutions is sort of interesting but not relevant. For us, this is the backbone of our student body. Our No. 1 competition as an institution, who we lose students to, is not Boulder or Fort Collins. Our No.1 competition is no college at all.”
For Colorado Mesa, the solution was to create its own financial aid net-price calculator. Students input their information and the university applies a financial aid reward to their tuition bills. If the official FAFSA amount ultimately comes back greater, students can keep the difference. If it’s lower, the school will honor its calculation.
“I think it’s an innovative approach that’s really central to our mission,” Marshall said. “We’ve got to show up for families when they’re wrestling through some of these kitchen table issues. If we’re not doing that at this moment in time, we risk losing a whole generation to college.”
Universities across the state are in discussion about how to best handle the rapidly evolving situation.
Durango’s Fort Lewis College plans to use institutional funds to match the money current Pell Grant recipients receive whose financial situation has not changed. Prospective students can get a financial aid estimate on a net-price calculator on the college’s website. The college also pushed back deadlines to confirm attendance to June 1.
Leaders at the University of Colorado Boulder are discussing whether to reevaluate timelines as needed and said they remain confident that their campus will be able to shepherd current and prospective students through the financial aid process.
Weiss said she’s had conversations with others in her field who have predicted the FAFSA flaws will create college enrollment declines more severe than the pandemic.
“I define FAFSA as the key to open the door to all the money to college and if you don’t have the key, you can’t get in,” Weiss said. “I’m confident things are going to work out and students will have their Pell money if they need it in October, but it’s the uncertainty before that that I think is going to scare a lot of people and families away.”
“Don’t give up”
John Gudvangen, the University of Denver’s associate vice chancellor for financial aid, said it’s not a time to panic.
With all colleges and universities in the same boat of waiting on the federal government, he said institutions are sympathetic to students’ plights and willing to be flexible.
“The concern in our profession is this will deter students, and we say, ‘Don’t give up,’” Gudvangen said. “It’s a delay. It’s not a stop to the process. The other message is schools understand the timeline is difficult and are going to be willing to help families and students with conversations or different timelines… Students should be in touch with their schools if they have concerns about not having all the information they need to make good decisions.”
Gil-Gonzalez has his heart set on DU, but his financial aid reward will determine whether he goes or not. The CEC student needs to turn his financial aid form in to the Daniels Fund by May 1, a deadline that was extended to accommodate the delay.
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“However, we will select and announce our new class of Daniels Scholars in late March, so we will already have offered scholarships to selected finalists at that point and the results of the FAFSA won’t impact whether or not they receive the Daniels Scholarship,” said Bruce Wilmsen, vice president of media and communications at the Daniels Fund. In 2021, the Daniels Fund awarded more than $44 million in grants and scholarships.
In the meantime, Gil-Gonzalez is going to continue applying for smaller scholarships and hopes his financial aid comes through in the end. If nothing else, the student said he could always take a gap year.
“If you know a system is going to have these kinks and flaws, and you don’t test it out first like a trial run just drop this ball — that feels pretty unfair,” Gil-Gonzalez said.
For students stuck in limbo, Carl Einhaus, senior director of student success at the Colorado Department of Higher Education, said to check in with the financial aid and admissions offices of the institutions they’ve applied to and see what can be done.
“Institutions will want to work with students as much as they can,” Einhaus said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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