The Southern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (SASFAA) held their annual conference in Chattanooga from February 11th – 15th. As SASFAA paved the way for 60 years and will continue to do so for many years to come, the latest information and interesting insights were great to leave with. College Aid Services attended the conference and would like to share with our readers some interesting and new information as we approach the most significant change in Financial Aid in our careers – the FAFSA Simplification.
The simplification of the FAFSA has many financial aid professionals wondering how we will endure the unknown. We have seen slight changes in the FAFSA Methodology over the years, but this is light years from what has come before. The information received shows that there will be impacts on both our processes as well as the students we serve. As to what will be the implications of these changes and what it means for institutions as we try to serve all students will continuously evolve. Learning to provide needed aid and balancing budgets is the question we find ourselves asking as we navigate this new unknown.
General session one consisted of updates to 2024-25: The New FAFSA. Some of the key takeaways included:
- FAFSA will be expected on or before January 1, 2024, but will most likely not be ready by October 1, 2023.
- Applicants will “invite” other contributors and will require a Social Security Number (SSN) to invite these contributors.
- FAA access will no longer allow an initial application to be entered but will allow corrections.
- A new Parent Wizard is being added to determine who the parent is in cases of divorce or separation.
- Negative SAI (Student Aid Index) will not allow for packaging to exceed the Cost of Attendance (COA).
- Estimated Financial Aid (EFA) will now be known as Other Financial Aid (OFA) and will no longer exclude combat pay but will exclude Emergency Aid.
- Verification will still be used but plans to streamline/simplify the process are a top priority.
Multiple discussions took place on who under the new formula would be granted Pell for the first time and who previously was eligible may become ineligible. In addition, every school’s different population makes it varied based on the type of students serviced. For example, multiple students in college are impacted, and families that own a farm or small business are affected as the number in college is removed from the equation and income earned from a family farm or small business is added into the equation. This becomes an inconvenient situation to determine without a complete equation released .
UNC Chapel Hill & James Madison University presented on their populations of students impacted by FAFSA Simplification using the NASFAA SAI Modeling Tool. Both saw significant impacts of more students needing Need-Based Aid and students losing Pell, which resulted in necessary conversations with their leadership about what was needed for their current and future student populations. In addition, these schools shared their impacts and gave excellent information on how to speak with leadership to increase additional funding.
As the FAFSA Simplification remains a hot topic in our industry, there were other great sessions that covered all financial aid aspects. Throughout the week, it was wonderful to see over 400 attendees as we returned from the COVID-era of conferences. College Aid Services is more prepared than ever to help your institution navigate this new unknown that we head into as higher education professionals.
– Sara Reese, Senior Consultant for College Aid Services