MESA — According to the National College Attainment Network, Arizona ranks 50th in the nation for students completing the FAFSA, the application for federal student aid for higher education. However, there are concentrated efforts underway to help more students apply for FAFSA.
There was a lot of troubleshooting going on in downtown Mesa on a Saturday morning. Students came in to get much-needed help on how to fill out their FAFSA, which is critical for some students who need federal assistance to get through college.
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“My first year, it pretty much covered everything. Second year, a little bit less because parents’ income changed a little bit. And this year I’m trying to see what I can get,” said Juan Esquivel Santos, who learned about the workshop through his parents.
He’s been having issues finishing out this year’s application, which was revamped this year, and he’s not the only one. ABC15 has covered issues in the past few months where some students are not able to apply for assistance if one of their parents does not have a social security number.
Those are concerns ABC15 took straight to the U.S. Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, in a one-on-one interview on Friday.
“Definitely there were issues. I'm a father of a high school senior who was also waiting and wanting to make decisions and I recognize across the country, students and families had to wait longer, which is frustrating,” Cardona said.
Cardona said there are now workarounds and fixes in place for most of the issues families faced in the last few months as he said his team is making more changes in order to modernize the application.
With Arizona’s low application completion rate, Governor Katie Hobbs allocated $500,000 to boost the help for students. That investment allowed the Arizona Board of Regents to help students through hotlines and start regional workshops for students to get in-person, one-on-one help.
“Since we started this campaign in April, to help provide regional workshops such as this one here, virtual appointments, FAFSA hotline, we’ve been able to increase our state’s FAFSA completion rate to close to a 9% increase,” said Julie Sainz, the director of FAFSA and College Access Initiatives with the Arizona Board of Regents. “We’re going to continue these efforts through the summer so that students do have access to assistance to complete this critical form.”
There are several more events happening through the summer. You can find more information here.
