JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — First Coast families are in limbo with their finances, not knowing how much money they'll need to afford college.
Right now the roll-out of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, is still causing issues experts warn could cost you. The form itself is simpler, but the roll-out of it has not been.
Now some colleges and universities across the country are reportedly even pushing back their admissions deadlines because of delays. In Jacksonville, neither the University of North Florida, Jacksonville University, nor Florida State College at Jacksonville are doing that right now, but officials at each school say they are feeling the impacts of the delay.
“It’s a whole thing,” said UNF freshman Thomas Orsini. “It’s so anxiety-inducing. I don’t know how much money I owe the government and nobody’s telling me.”
Orsini knows he’s going into debt to pay for college, but not knowing how much is stressful.
“It’s a little anxiety-inducing because I have to pay that money back if I accept it,” he said. “So not knowing if I’m 5.5 thousand dollars in debt or not.”
He’s not alone. The U.S. Department of Education just announced they don’t expect to start handing over student aid information to colleges and universities until next month. In the past, schools would already have this information and would be able to tell students how much they owe for their school.
As Julia Lawless, director of undergraduate admissions at Jacksonville University, explains, this also means less time for new students to decide where they can go to college.
“This timeline that everyone is so worried about has really gone from about eight months to two months,” Lawless said. “So it’s very reasonable to be concerned and stressed. We’re just trying to make sure that we are keeping students very well-informed on the information that we can provide them.”
The updated FAFSA sign-up mandated by Congress is supposed to use a more generous formula for families. At FSCJ, Vice President of Student Development Elliott Strickland says the new form will be helpful in the long-run.
“It gives them, more students, the greater opportunity to pursue that dream of higher education, which we know is transformative,” Strickland said. “It’s really a generational change to pursue that dream of higher education.”
Admissions officials encourage you to apply for every scholarship in case you aren’t granted as much student aid as you thought and by the time you find out, the scholarship deadline has passed.