Taking the Trick Out of Tapping Into Federal Aid

It's hard to find a college student who doesn't despise the FAFSA.

The 101-question, eight-page form -- short for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid -- is filled out by 14 million students each year who apply for federal financial aid. But the questionnaire is so mind-bogglingly complicated that many others just give up and miss out on government grants.

So Congress and the Education Department are moving to simplify the form and let students know earlier whether they qualify for aid, steps that officials hope will make college more affordable and accessible.

"You should not need a graduate degree in engineering to figure out this application," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who co-sponsored legislation introduced last month that would reduce the form to two pages.

The legislation, sponsored by House and Senate Democrats, would allow students to have some of their financial data transferred from the Internal Revenue Service to the Education Department. That change would eliminate 31 of the most complicated questions on the form, according to the Institute for College Access and Success, a student advocacy group that helped develop the proposal.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings also unveiled a new online tool, FAFSA4caster, which will help high school students estimate how much federal financial aid they might receive.

"They need to start looking at this in their junior year and even before," Spellings said last month. She said the device "will help families and students plan for postsecondary education."

The tool, which debuted yesterday at http://www.federalstudentaid.ed.gov, makes it simpler to complete the FAFSA by automating answers to 51 of the questions on the form.

Lawmakers and the Bush administration hope these steps will help more students attend college. Experts estimate that 1.5 million poor students who qualify for federal grants don't receive them because they don't finish the form.

"The form itself can deter people from applying for the aid that is necessary for them to go to college," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. With the initiatives, he said, "we will be able to address this in very short order."