The Ayers Foundation has postponed Warren County High School’s FAFSA Frenzy event Saturday because of ongoing issues with the new student aid form.
Ayers College Access Counselor Vanessa Farris said the new FAFSA website intermittently crashes. She said the state is giving advice to educators not to hold large FAFSA events until the issues are worked out.
“It launched on December 31, but it was called a soft launch,” Farris said. “So, the federal system is still working out some kinks with the new technology, and it is going down quite frequently. We are still in that soft launch phase.”
FAFSA normally opens in October but was pushed back by the state to December 31 to launch the new online FAFSA form. The event will now be held January 23 at Warren County High School.
Despite the shaky start, Ayers College Counselor Grace Young said she has completed the new FAFSA form, and it is a simplified form.
“It was working during this period of time,” Young said. “It was pretty quick. It didn’t take me that long, maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes max. I’m an independent student, so it may be different for others who are dependent.”
Not much information was available on the new FAFSA previous to its launch, which caused concern among many College counselors and advisors.
“They called it a new and better FAFSA, and it truly is new and better,” Farris said. “It’s actually simplified, so there really shouldn’t be a lot of stress, but it was a big change technically.”
FAFSA forms are required for all students who want to receive any kind of financial aid. The deadline to fill out the FAFSA form is June 30.
“It’s really important for student no matter what their post-secondary plan is,” Ayers College Counselor Tori Meeks said. “It’s to ensure they have a financial piece in play. Obviously plans change, they may not decide to go down the path they originally chose, but if you can get free money, it’s worth doing.”
The Warren County School Ayers College Counselors have been working with students and parents to prepare for the new FAFSA form since October.
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