San Antonio colleges, universities scramble to minimize FAFSA glitch’s impact

A record number of students across San Antonio will have the opportunity to attend college tuition- and fee-free next year, with the Alamo Colleges District expanding its Alamo Promise program, UTSA continuing its Bold Promise program and Texas A&M San Antonio introducing the new Jaguar Promise program.

But in order to be eligible for the programs, students must first complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a federal income and need assessment which launched a new version online at the end of last year.

FAFSA, the benchmark used by higher education institutions to measure student need, asks questions about parental income, bank accounts, investments and more to determine what grants and loans students are eligible to receive. Locally, the “promise” programs cover any tuition left over after financial aid is applied.

The updated FAFSA application launched months later than usual and with a complete redesign following a piece of legislation called the FAFSA Simplification Act, which was signed into law in 2020. Despite reforms including a shorter response form and less required information from tax documents than in years past — which removes logistical hurdles and opens up more funds for the neediest students — a multitude of new problems have cropped up in the months since the form came online. 

Just days after it went live, students and parents began reporting issues completing the form, with the number of glitches increasing in the months since, particularly for families with dual or otherwise mixed citizenship.

A temporary workaround was announced last week, but will require more permanent solution later on.

Local higher education officials fear the FAFSA rollout hiccups could discourage students who are hesitant to go to college from completing the form at all, losing out on funds for school and maybe deciding not to go after all.

In response, officials have been scrambling to minimize the impact of the glitches and to create as smooth of a path as possible for new admissions.

Tuition assistance programs

Harold Whitis, the district director of student financial aid for the Alamo Colleges District, said that the goal is to get as many students into college as possible — even if that means ironing out the FAFSA glitch later.

“We’re not going to deny any student if we know they are in the process and they have started it, and they can’t finish it because of a technical issue with the Department of [Education],” he said. “We want those students in school, we think it’s a big benefit for Alamo and for Bexar County in general.”

The Alamo Promise program was launched in 2019 and expanded in the years since, now allowing all Bexar County high school graduates to attend one of the Alamo Colleges District’s five campuses tuition-free.

The initiative, which began in 2019, covers the total cost of tuition and required fees for new graduates from participating high schools seeking an academic certificate or associate degree at one of the five colleges in the Alamo Colleges District. Nearly 3,000 students participated in fall 2020, with a dip during the COVID pandemic to around 2,547, and 3,948 during the third year of the program. More than 20,000 students are eligible for Alamo Promise, according to Denise Blaz, a district spokeswoman.

Leanne Johnson, the director of TAMU-SA’s office of student financial aid and scholarships said that the school will have a record of when students started the FAFSA process online.

“The date they file will still be there … from the Department of Education,” she said. “So even if they’re unable to successfully file it, the date will come in to show that they met the requirement.” 

Erika Cox, UTSA’s assistant vice provost and executive director of financial aid and scholarships, said that the important thing for students and parents interested in the Bold Promise program to do this year is to fill out the form by March 15.

“Students everywhere are navigating the complexities of the new FASFA form, and we know how important it is for them to get this process right,” she said. “We have a team of financial aid professionals at the ready to assist our students.”

Students in limbo

Even if students are able to fill out the form without a hitch, however, the delays mean that colleges won’t receive data on student financial needs until at least March, months later than in the past, and just weeks before the school’s scholarship award letters usually go out. 

Angelica Melendez, an adviser at Burbank High School in the San Antonio Independent School District, said this is already complicating the decision-making process for students who rely on award letters and the amount of funding they will receive to make a choice.

“It’s a huge deciding factor for a lot of our students of where they want to go,” she said.

During a school visit by U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, Melendez asked the congressman to bring her students’ concerns back to Washington, which he said he would do.

Castro signed onto a letter sent to the U.S. Dept. of Education on Feb. 16 urging attention to the matter.     

Depending on how students fill out the form, requirements differ on which parents are required to submit information, Melendez said, leading to confusion. 

That turns a 30-minute process into one that lasts multiple days. 

Marivel Ojeda, director of financial assistance at St. Mary’s University, a private liberal arts school in San Antonio that uses FAFSA to determine aid for students, said in a statement that the situation puts colleges and students “in a bind.”

“We cannot access any information to assist families who have perhaps started the process, nor can we speak to families about their financial aid awards,” Ojeda said. “Our hands are tied right now without knowing the Student Aid Index, which is a number schools use to determine financial aid eligibility levels, or Pell Grant eligibility for our families.”

At this time last year, according to St. Mary’s, advisers would have been meeting with families individually, comparing aid offers and talking about payment options. 

“Now, we cannot begin to have these conversations unless they can provide us with an estimated Student Aid Index,” Ojeda said.

Decision points

Madelyn Ocampo, a senior at Northside ISD’s Warren High School, has her mind set on going to the University of the Incarnate Word, and is hoping for funds to help her go, especially given the private school’s tuition. She was ready to fill out the FAFSA form in October, when it was available in years past, and filled it out as soon as she could in early January. 

Without certainty about aid, she has been looking for scholarships, asking family for funds, and holding out hope.

“There is the stress that everyone who is my age who is trying to get into college or university is going through,” Ocampo said. “The biggest thing is wondering if you’re going to get enough money through the FAFSA.”

Ocampo said friends of hers, including those already in college, are fervently applying for scholarships and getting extra jobs due to questions of how much assistance they will get. 

“Some of them are just giving up and being like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going to do the FAFSA. I’m just going to crack down on work and hope that carries me through,'” she said. 

Her mother, Kristina Ocampo, said it is difficult for families to budget without having a number in place, something that wasn’t a concern when her son applied for college and filled out a FAFSA just years ago. 

“We’re going to try our hardest not to have to do huge student loans,” she said. “But that’s the fear that I have, and that’s the fear that a lot of parents have.” 

Brandy McLelland, the vice president of enrollment management at TAMU-SA, said that anytime a massive federal program is rolled out, hiccups are to be expected. 

The outcome will eventually be more students having access to funds for college, she added. Despite frustrations, she said college advisers at the high school and college level are working to help the process remain manageable for students. 

“My number one concern is that students hear, that this is a hard system or get frustrated with the system, get impatient within the system as they’re trying to make it work and they step out of the … process altogether,” she said. “And for first-generation students that they also don’t get the support and that they need, we’re concerned that, we’re trying to mitigate that piece.”

That has long been the goal of “dream centers” in the Edgewood ISD, where students have traditionally been slower to start the FAFSA process. 

As a result, Jorge Garcia, the director of the district’s counseling services , said that the delay hasn’t affected student efforts to fill out the form as it has elsewhere, since many of Edgewood’s students haven’t yet started to fill out the form.

“Because we are accustomed to our students just being slow at getting going with this process and having to really hold their hand through it, in a way these delays have not been a huge issue for us” he said. 

The heavy load for dream centers comes in March or April, he said. 

Another aspect of the new, updated form is that parents have to create a separate account to fill out their portions of the form. This extra step has sparked hesitation from some parents, Garcia said, which has taken time and explanation to sort through. 

April Garza, who is a college, career and military adviser in Northside ISD, said despite the hiccups, she is hopeful for a better process in the years to come. 

“I really feel that it will be a great tool, when we can get it to work properly,” she said. “There’s still some issues with matching families in the system or individuals in the system, but when everything’s working properly, I absolutely feel like it will be a great tool and the FAFSA will be much easier.”