Dear Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA),
My name is Shareefah Mason. I am a Presidential Leadership Scholar who currently serves as the Director of Teacher Experience at a national non-profit that prepares prospective teachers. I worked as an Associate Dean of Educator Certification at the largest community college system in Texas. I taught in the ninth-largest urban district in the country for sixteen years and served as the governing body for Texas educators. And although I can spew off my accolades without pause, I cannot navigate the new FAFSA form, to ensure my daughter is in compliance.
As a connected educator who has led in every sector from K-16, I have had access to all the webinars and training provided by the Department of Education before the implementation of the new form. Many days, I traded in my lunch to sit on calls where participants asked very relevant questions about the new process, only to leave with more questions than answers. After the delay in the release of the new form (which was supposed to occur in late fall), I rushed to complete it in January to be amongst the first to submit it.
I thought that everything had been processed, although the form remained in the ‘in process’ status for months. I called customer service to be told I had to wait until the system updated and it could possibly take weeks. Finally, in March, the system was updated and I was notified that I needed to make changes.
I quickly rushed to make the changes, as I understood the immediacy of submitting the FAFSA, and was unsuccessful. I called customer service and waited for hours to be connected to several agents who could not provide any help. I emailed customer service and received a response to wait fifteen days for a reply. As the timeline expired time and time again, I still await a written response from the FAFSA team providing guidance to help in making the necessary corrections. Yet, I constantly receive emails from FAFSA that my daughter’s form still needs to be completed.
Fortunately, my daughter has a full scholarship and doesn’t receive any support from FAFSA. So, an incomplete form won’t have a negative impact on her. However, it is my responsibility to speak on behalf of those who don’t have a voice or platform. That is not the story for hundreds of thousands of college students. Students of color hailing from disenfranchised communities, where the FAFSA form is a foreign language, will not be attending college this year because the new form has derailed their access to the funding necessary to support their postsecondary pursuits.
When systems designed to activate educational access for marginalized students become the very obstacles that derail their opportunities to attain economic mobility, it is time to step back, reflect, and revise. I can’t count the number of parents of color to whom I have spoken who are excruciatingly devastated by the theft of the inaccessibility of postsecondary opportunities. The very opportunities they were counting on to transform their lives and exponentially increase their economic mobility were stripped away without cause.
As the fifteen days from my first request for assistance rolled into ninety days, I became even more frustrated. Every email I receive from FAFSA to correct my form, only to be met with the same issues, makes me feel defeated. I can only assume how deflated those who are completing the form for the first time feel. I hope the Department of Education is aware of the overwhelming impact this complication will have on first-generation students of color. This issue will cause unwavering fear and trepidation, as they will feel disconnected from the promise of college. In an effort to transform the process, I suggest the Department of Education do three things.
Revise the form- Make it easily navigable for laymen.
Identify the prospective students who applied and were unable to successfully complete the form- Provide one-on-assistance to complete the form for Spring 2025.
Publicly apologize for the inconvenience- It will make those who were harmed by the process feel affirmed and motivate them to reconnect to the idea of attempting college again.