How the changes might affect you – NBC 7 San Diego

The new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form is out three months later than it was originally planned. The delay may have you and your family anxious to fill it out but experts say you should hold on.

You may have seen a “planned maintenance” message pop up since October when accessing the form on the studentaid.gov website. The U.S. Department of Education this month is going through a soft launch of the new form and formula it will use to determine student aid.

That message is now gone, and the page now says it’ll be available “for short periods of time.”  

Jim Lundgren has been a college admission coach for more than 20 years. He says whatever you send this month won’t be seen by trade schools, colleges and universities until February 1st. He adds that you won’t be able to make any corrections until then either, so take your time he says and recommends waiting about two weeks for the soft launch to play out. 

What are the changes in the new FAFSA application?

• Fewer questions: the questions in the application decreased from 106 to 36. Some do have drop-down menus that could require more work from you. 
• IRS connects to FAFSA: This makes it easier for parents as they won’t have to input the data themselves. It’s all done automatically. 
• More Pell Grants: More students will qualify for Pell Grants.

Here are some changes that could impact students and their families. 

• No sibling discount: parents will no longer get a break if they have more than one student in college. 
• Divorced families: students with divorced parents will now need to report with the parent who is providing the most financial support, not necessarily the custodial parent. 
• Small business assets: small businesses with less than 100 employees will now need to include their business valuations as an asset in the FAFSA application. This was excluded before. 

Also keep this in mind because of the FAFSA delay the deadline to apply for a Cal-Grant was also pushed back from March 2nd to April 2nd. 

One more change to keep in mind, the new FAFSA application will allow students to list 20 schools they’re interested in instead of only 10.