So what happened with the FAFSA this year? As many students probably have noticed, the FAFSA (The Free Application for Federal Student Aid) was delayed until December 31 of last year. The FAFSA is the way both students and the school can tell how much federal aid they receive.
FAFSA Confusion. Graphic via Amy Matsushita-Beal from The New York Times
The changes to the FAFSA, included in the The FAFSA Simplification Act, pose a big change to the processes that are used to give federal student aid starting with the 2024-25 year. Some of the primary changes include: replacing the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) with the Student Aid Index (SAI), expanding people’s access to Federal Pell Grants, and also streamlining a lot of the aspects of the form itself.
A lot of the changes, like the addition of the SAI, create confusion for many families when filling it out because the SAI uses a different method of determining family income. The new formula does not include the family members in college in the calculation.
Although many of these changes are beneficial, they also pose challenges to Covenant students. Because the FAFSA was pushed so far back this year, current students as well as incoming freshmen have not received their federal aid packages yet. This poses several issues for Covenant College in general.
For one, current students have not received their federal aid statements yet, and are therefore not aware of what their aid packages will be in comparison to other years. Also, incoming freshmen have also not received their aid packets. This has impacted admissions greatly, as there are a large number of incoming students who have only tentatively confirmed their enrollment because they are waiting on their federal aid.
The incoming freshman class, as it is projected now, is one of the largest in Covenant’s history. This affects the housing process for Covenant due to the large size of the freshman class. Some of the upperclassmen might have to be moved around in order to accommodate the amount of freshmen that are projected to be attending.
New halls have been opened up in Founders both for girls and guys because of the high projections of freshmen. However, nothing is certain because the freshman class has not been confirmed.