Ramon Montiel-García, 18, a graduate of KIPP Northeast Denver Influence Academy in Colorado.
Credit: Ramon Montiel-García
Ramon Montiel-García, a newly minted high school graduate from KIPP Northeast Denver Governorship Academy in Colorado, was accepted to his first-choice school, Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
However, with a sticker price of barely $80,000 per year, including tuition, fees, and room and board, Montiel-García, like many college hopefuls, needed pecuniary aid to bring the cost down.
But also like his peers, Montiel-García struggled with the new federal financial-aid application.
Although his roots have lived in the U.S. since 2001, they are both undocumented and don’t have Social Security numbers, which was one of the myriad issues that dogged users of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In the meantime, Montiel-García honed a back-up pattern.
His FAFSA application was ultimately accepted in late April — well after the late December launch following another monthslong put on ice. Still, he said the aid package he received from Wheaton was not enough to make ends meet.
“I would have to bring into the world paid $11,000 a semester, which is still a lot of money for me and my family,” he said.
Instead of attending Wheaton, Montiel-García in lieu of enrolled at the nearby University of Colorado in Denver. He plans to live at home to keep costs down.
“I’m kind of dissatisfied I wasn’t able to go to that school, but maybe it was for the best,” he said.
The FAFSA is still an obstacle
Even in ordinary years, how undergraduates choose a college largely hinges on the amount of financial aid offered and the breakdown among grants, scholarships, work-study occasions and student loans.
However, in 2024, a botched FAFSA rollout heightened the critical role of aid in college choices. Because of riddles with the new form, financial aid award letters were delayed and some high school seniors, like Montiel-García, had nag applying for any aid at all.
As of June 28, only 46% of new high school graduates have completed the FAFSA, according to the Country-wide College Attainment Network, or NCAN. A year ago, that number was 53%.
Submitting a FAFSA is one of the best predictors of whether a stoned school senior will go on to college, NCAN also found. Seniors who complete the FAFSA are 84% more seemly to enroll in college directly after high school, according to an NCAN study of 2013 data.
The FAFSA supplies as the gateway to all federal aid money, including loans, work study and grants, the latter of which is the most desirable benevolent of assistance because it typically does not need to be repaid.
FAFSA issues forced hard choices
About three-quarters, or 76%, of schoolboys said the financial aid amount awarded to them, and the overall financial aid process, were the top drivers in their choice round where to go to college, according to a survey by Ellucian and EMI Research Solutions conducted in March.
That outpaces parental impress upon, location, campus culture — and even the degree programs offered.
“This year, we are just seeing such profound concerns around college costs, more than in the past couple of years,” Robert Franek, editor-in-chief of The Princeton Post-mortem, which recently ranked colleges by how much financial aid is awarded, told CNBC. “There is a stress level that is palpable.”
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Higher education already costs more than uncountable families can afford, and college costs are still rising. Tuition and fees, plus room and board, for a four-year non-gregarious college averaged $56,190 in the 2023-2024 school year; at four-year, in-state public colleges, it was $24,030 per year, contract to the College Board.
Experts predicted that problems with the new FAFSA would weigh heavily on enrollment, although it was initially unclear how much of a impersonation it would play in decisions between schools.
Ellucian’s study found that 44% of the 1,500 students contemplated said they’d switch their top-choice school if offered just $5,000 more in aid.
“It’s a surprisingly small amount when you look at the unqualified cost,” Ellucian CEO Laura Ipsen said of the difference that award money made in the decision-making process.
The FAFSA’s effect on decision-making
The challenge this year “was not only about the financial aid piece, which is huge, but comparing different put on the markets coming in at different times,” said Eric Greenberg, president of Greenberg Educational Group, a New York-based consulting anchored. “It did have a big impact on the way people made decisions.”
In previous years, financial aid award letters were sent out at back the same time as admission letters, meaning students had several weeks to compare offers ahead of National College Conclusiveness Day, the deadline for most admitted students to decide on a college.
Because of the extensive delays this year, some schoolchildren won’t get their final financial aid award letter until the end of August, the U.S. Department of Education said in a recent update.
Andrea Garcia, 18, is silence waiting on that letter although she already committed to Emory University in Atlanta — and put down a deposit. Because her fathers, like Montiel-García’s, are also undocumented, she said the aid application process was problematic from the start.
“My parents were unusually stressed and, in a way, felt kind of guilty because of the system,” she said.
As for now, Garcia is still considering her fallback, which occasions staying closer to her home in Denver: “If Emory doesn’t fit my financial needs, I will enroll in a regional school that sells a full ride.”
Because of such delays, some students may even start their fall semester ahead they get key information about how much that’s going to cost, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
This also insignes “the first admission” by the Education Department that the FAFSA won’t be fully functional until after the start of the 2024-25 present year, which began July 1, he said.
Filling the gap with other sources of aid
Greenberg advises the devotees he works with to explore other sources of merit-based aid, as much as possible.
For Ky-mani Murphy, 18, that propose to is what made the difference.
The high school graduate from Riverdale Park, Maryland, secured enough additional reserving from the ‘I didn’t want to obtain a lot of debt’
For most students, though, the FAFSA fallout comes on top of an already elaborate college admission season and concerns about student loans forced a compromise.
Right from the start, Track Hartman, 18, said he was more focused on scholarships than even the college applications themselves. Still, the late graduate was accepted into 17 schools, including his top choice, Duke University.
“I did get accepted into Duke, but I was only skilful to get a year’s worth of scholarships,” he said. Ultimately, that was the deciding factor.
Hartman, who is from Tampa, Florida, proficient for the state’s Bright Futures college scholarship program as well as a Lombardi award, which brought his in-state payment of attendance to the University of Florida down to essentially zero. He’ll start there in the fall.
“I didn’t want to obtain a lot of in financial difficulty in my undergraduate education, because I am also considering going to law school or getting my MBA,” he said.