A FAFSA fiasco has students still asking: Which college can they afford?

By this time of year, college-bound high school seniors are usually celebrating their choices, researching dorms and even thinking of their majors. This year, that’s not necessarily the case.

Because of a disastrous rollout of the new application for federal tuition aid, many still don’t know how much tuition they would be paying and so have not decided where they can afford to go.

The Education Department’s redesigned form for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid was supposed to make applying for tuition aid easier and more accessible. But faced with a bureaucratic mess caused by technical meltdowns and severe delays in processing information and receiving aid packages, students say the new system has been anything but clear or streamlined.

The first signs of trouble began in December with the form’s release and have cascaded since, creating uncertainties for students — with graduation right around the corner.

“It’s been a nightmare from point A to point B,” said Reyna Atkinson, a 17-year-old from Michigan, who ultimately committed to Michigan State University after months of waiting.

FAFSA is a free, standardized application for federal aid for college tuition that millions rely on. Students fill out one form, with details on their background and household income, to request tuition information for the schools they list.

Before the overhaul, applicants typically received their financial aid packages within 72 hours of submission. But this year, the Education Department has to reprocess more than 500,000 applications, and students have been waiting for two, three months — and counting.

Students typically must commit to a college by May 1. Some colleges have extended their decision days until May 15 or early June because of the FAFSA problems.

Even so, several students interviewed by The New York Times said they were making decisions without getting a full picture of tuition costs, a move financial aid experts discourage. Others said they couldn’t commit without knowing how much their chosen college would cost.

Kenneth Seinshin, a 17-year-old from New York City who hopes to be the first in his family to go to college, started filling out his application the first week it came out. But it took months to troubleshoot the glitches he encountered; he finally submitted in March.

So far, he has received only one aid package, for Union College in New York, and he has yet to make a decision. “The whole process just really stressed me out,” Kenneth said.

Simply completing the application has been a frustrating task for many. Some have not been able to save their changes or make corrections, while others could not submit their form at all.

So far this year, there has been a noticeable dip in the number of students who have completed the form, compared with last year. Among high schoolers graduating this year, 35.6% had completed financial aid applications through April 26, compared with 48.2% in the same period for the previous class, data analysis by the National College Attainment Network shows.

“The data on FAFSA completion takes a bad story and makes it even worse,” said Bill DeBaun, a senior director at NCAN, which tracks FAFSA applications.

Vanessa Farris, a counselor for the Ayers Foundation Trust in McMinnville, Tennessee, said several of her students tripped over one particular question:

“Are the student’s parents unwilling to provide their information, but the student doesn’t have an unusual circumstance, such as those listed in question 7, that prevents them from contacting the parents or obtaining their information?”

“Such a little thing, but it has a cost,” Farris said. Several students provided wrong answers, and they were not able to amend their mistake for months.

The debacle affects some more than others. Agnes Cesare, a college counselor at UCLA Community School, said she was worried about its effects on students from low-income families or racial minority groups.

Cesare said that because of the arduous process, some students at her school had decided to pursue an associate degree and save up for a bachelor’s later. But she worries that once they are out of high school, they may not get the help they need to transfer to a four-year school.

“It feels like the roadblocks are insurmountable” for those students, Cesare said.