FAFSA fallout hurts college admissions

May 1 is usually a big day for college admissions. This year it was “marred by the federal government’s botched rollout” of its new financial aid application,” said The Associated Press. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid — known as FAFSA — was overhauled to make it “simpler and shorter.” But a “series of blunders” at the U.S. Department of Education made the online form all but unusable for many families. The result? With the start of classes just a few months away, many hopeful students “don’t know where they’re going to college, or how they’re going to pay for it.”

“Everything is wrong,” one college and career counselor told Inside Higher Ed. The problems with FAFSA “disproportionately affected low-income students who rely on federal aid” and who couldn’t make informed college decisions without knowing how much money would be available to them. Some students “will delay attending, and some will forgo it entirely,” Daniel Currell said at The New York Times. That will have “lasting implications” for those young people — and, eventually, “for the economy as a whole.”