New FAFSA System Leaves Arkansas Colleges Seeking Clarity on Enrollment

Suzanne McCray, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions at the University of Arkansas, finds it concerning that so few students have filed applications for financial aid this year. (Michael Woods)

Enrollment officials at colleges and universities across Arkansas are embroiled in bureaucratic confusion as they wait to open their doors to the high school class of 2024.

Repeated delays and uncertainty surround the amount of financial aid that incoming freshmen will receive at the federal, state and college levels.

The result is schools don’t quite know how many students they can expect to enroll because many of those students make their college choices based on the amount of their financial aid.

“It is sometimes complicated, and this year has been incredibly complicated,” said Suzanne McCray, the vice provost for enrollment and the dean of admissions at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

The revision of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — FAFSA — process was mandated by Congress in 2020 to begin by January of this year.

The new application inspired optimism because it was streamlined, easier to file and expected to make many more low-income students eligible for Pell Grants.

Delays and Revisions

But the FAFSA rollout was jumbled, to be kind. The application process was delayed and revised and delayed again, leaving many students unsure about what kind of financial aid packages they can expect for attending college.

Colleges and universities face the same uncertainty. Who is going to come here and how much aid will they receive?

McCray said the UA usually receives about 30,000 Institutional Student Information Records (ISIR) through FAFSA each year in plenty of time for students to make their decisions in the spring.

The university had received fewer than 13,000 ISIRs by the first week of April, she said.

And the University of Arkansas isn’t an anomaly. The National College Attainment Network reported that just 35% of this year’s graduating seniors had filed their FAFSA applications through March 29, down more than 27% from a year ago.

The network reported that, in Arkansas, just 30.3% of graduating seniors had finished their FAFSA paperwork, down more than 27% from a year ago.

“We’re not even halfway there, and it’s April,” McCray said. “That is a little bit scary. The usual decision day is May 1. Most schools are delaying their decision days.”

Jumbled Mess

Kevin Thomas, the vice president for enrollment services and student success at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, said FAFSA information usually reaches the schools beginning in October. However, in some cases, the delayed FAFSA applications were also incorrect.

Thomas said UCA received ISIRs then received a communication from the U.S. Department of Education that 25% of the applications were incorrect, but it couldn’t tell the university which 25% was affected.

“Many times the Department of Education has said there is something wrong with your data,” Thomas said. “It is leaving students with less than a complete picture of what their financial status will look like for this fall. On our end, I think we have done a pretty good job of saying, ‘Here’s what we think your financial aid piece might look like based off what we know.’”

Russell Jones, interim president of Arkansas Tech in Russellville, said the university understands the chaos of FAFSA this year, so it decided to reverse the scholarship protocol.

Jones said Arkansas Tech will give its prospective freshmen the university’s financial aid without a completed FAFSA form, which most higher education institutions require before giving scholarships.

“To call it [the new FAFSA rollout] a hiccup would be an understatement,” Jones said. “We made our scholarships pretty simple. If you apply, we’re going to give you your academic scholarship first. We’re going to stack the federal and state scholarships on top of that. We are reversing that pyramid.”

The fallout can be harder on smaller schools, such as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. UAPB had a stiff 12% drop in enrollment last year, and it revamped its organization, infrastructure and personnel to help boost the enrollment department.

“It is creating quite a challenge for us,” said Moses Goldmon, the university’s vice chancellor for enrollment management and student success. “We are not getting as many FAFSA applications as we have in the past. Then the question is, do you go ahead and process those knowing the Department of Education is going to make adjustments to those?

“Like many HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities], we are often under-resourced in those areas so we have a smaller staff. We have received fewer applications and we don’t have the confidence to process those. It’s a real tenuous situation.”

Good News

While FAFSA is perhaps a four-letter word for many in higher education this year, enrollment officials believe the new format will prove beneficial in the long run.

Thomas said the previous application had as many as 125 questions, but the new FAFSA has many fewer.

“Once this thing is right, the changes are going to be great,” Thomas said. “Anybody will tell you that filling something out that is 25 questions is better than something that is 125 questions. The data and the information just hasn’t been right.

“I think all college campuses, including us, look forward to the day we can get to that information being accurate.”

McCray agreed.

It may be small comfort to this year’s class — returning college students also apply for continued aid through FAFSA — but he predicts smoother sailing in the future.

“Any time you implement such a massive system, there are going to be problems,” McCray said. “I think the students next year are going to be happy. It is going to be an easier thing for them to complete.

“That was the whole goal, to make it an easier process for students and families. I think they are going to be able to provide that. I think that will happen next year. It is a growing phase.”

Goldmon said he is “cautiously optimistic” about UAPB’s enrollment growing at least 5% this year, FAFSA problems notwithstanding. Likewise, Arkansas Tech is optimistic after stabilizing enrollment last year after a decade that saw a 16.6% drop.

“The future in higher education is still bright,” Jones said.

“You might say we are right-sizing some of the things in higher education. You will hear some people say that a college degree is not worth as much as it used to be and that’s just not true.

“A college degree is necessary for a lot of occupations, and it is a pathway to a lot of careers,” Jones said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be the four years as soon as you finish high school. It’s going to be there for you.”