FAFSA mess makes IRS look good: Why can’t the feds get both of them right?

Wednesday, May 1, is the usual date when high school seniors have to decide what college they will attend. But for far too many kids and their families across the country, this is not a usual year as they still don’t even know how much they will have to pay for tuition, room and board when their freshmen semesters begin in the fall.

The bad guy here is old Uncle Sam and his Free Application for Federal Student Aid, called FAFSA®, which is a registered trademark, but has been worth less than an empty promise as the feds have failed again and again.

The way it used to work, not so long ago in preparing for fall 2023 and earlier, was that families filled out the online FAFSA starting on Oct. 1. When we did it in October 2022, it took two days from completing the form to having it sent out to the college. That gave plenty of time for the schools to evaluate the info about family income and assets and prepare an aid package to present back to the new or continuing student.

Under the “improved” FAFSA which was supposed to be simpler, with fewer questions, the start date was pushed back to Dec. 31, three months later. As to the point of that delay, we have no idea. Maybe the theory was that a later date for a streamlined form would make it easier for families. Instead, it was a disaster.

The rollout was a huge mess, as people had difficulty even getting started on the balky website, but at least for us, it eventually did work. We got ours done, with the message “Application Received Jan. 28, 2024.” But it wasn’t two days to process. Or two weeks. It was almost two months, finally with the notice “Application Processed March 22, 2024.” Whew, we thought, those “missing FAFSA” alerts from the college would cease, but they didn’t. Finally, the government sent the data to the college and we got: “Received by the college: 4/10/2024 12:00:00 AM,”

No wonder colleges can’t tell kids how much aid will be available and incoming freshmen can’t decide which school to accept. Once upon a time, colleges had the numbers from families in October, now they are getting it six months later! And the culprit is a government that was trying to improve matters. Colleges all over the country have had to push back their acceptance dates from May 1, thanks to your federal government at work.

Few people would ever think of holding up the IRS as a model of efficiency, but their new Direct File, offered in a dozen states as a test, actually was a dream. New York was one of the states, so we used it. We filed the 1040 with the tax agency for a refund on March 19. When done with the simple process, the email we got said, “If you are owed a refund, you should receive it within 21 days.” Eight days later, the refund appeared in the bank account.

How could the IRS, which handles far more data from far more people make such an effective website, but the U.S. Department of Education so totally blow it? Before this year, FAFSA worked just fine.

Congress likes asking questions. There are a great many students and families and colleges out there who deserve answers.