Students said changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid will ease the process with a simplified layout.

Federal Student Aid announced in March that the FAFSA would open in December instead of its typical Oct. 1 release date to allow time for FSA to streamline the application process by reducing the number of questions and make it easier and more accessible for students to apply. Experts in higher education said FSA’s simplification of the 2024-25 FAFSA will expand financial aid for low-income students by expanding Pell Grant eligibility and removing subsidies for families that own small businesses or farms.

The “Better FAFSA” application also omitted questions about drug convictions and Selective Service registration.

Jay Goff, the vice president for enrollment and student success, said the delay in opening the FAFSA will not impact Early Decision I applicants because they already completed the College Scholarship Service Profile, an application used mostly by private universities to calculate financial need. He said all early decision students must fill out the FAFSA once the application opens in December.

Goff added that the FAFSA delay will not impact current students because the priority deadline for financial aid is March 1.

“Admitted Early Decision I students will receive estimated offers of financial aid in December regardless of the date the FAFSA opens,” Goff said in an email.

Starting with the 2024-25 application, the FAFSA will calculate a Student Aid Index instead of an Expected Family Contribution, which no longer considers the number of family members in college and could be a negative number ranging up to -1,500, according to the FSA website. The Student Aid Index will determine how much financial aid a student would receive using the data applicants enter into the FAFSA.

Officials will continue to consider how many applicants’ family members attend college in financial aid eligibility, according to a newsletter from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Goff said the FAFSA’s reduction in questions from 108 to 46 will make the application process easier for students and families.

“It is hoped that this streamlined format will reduce the complexity of the application and make the first phase of the financial aid process less daunting for students and their families,” Goff said in an email.

Other major ​​changes to the 2024-25 FAFSA include the FSA ID, an optional login that allows students without social security numbers to apply for aid. The form also now allows “contributors,” like student parents and spouses, to complete a section of the form.

Jill Desjean, a senior policy analyst for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said this year’s FAFSA is delayed because the Department of Education is working to implement the changes made to FAFSA from a spending bill passed in December 2020, which aimed to make the application simpler.

Co-sponsors of the FAFSA reform bill, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Doug Jones (D-AL), said the 108 questions on last year’s form were a barrier to low-income students because the length of the form burdens applicants.

“The department had to start that from scratch, the whole consent process and really just develop a whole new way of completing the FAFSA,” Desjean said.

State tax allowances are no longer included in the formula for the Student Aid Index, according to an FSA letter.

Mark Kantrowitz, the founder of college financing advice website Finaid, said the removal of state tax allowances could lead to less financial aid for middle and upper-income students. Kantrowitz said the allowance meant applicants from states with higher taxes could have a lower Expected Family Contribution, essentially “sheltering” money from being reported.

“If you live in a high-tax state, let’s say New York, it was sheltering a significant portion of income, and that’s going away,” Kantrowitz said.

The new FAFSA will also not include subsidies for students who come from families who own small businesses or farms. A 2023 report from the Iowa Student Aid Commission found that a family making $60,000 a year with a farm valued at $1 million would see their expected contribution rise from $7,626 to $41,056 a year with the repeal of subsidies.

Katharine Meyer, a fellow at the public policy firm Brookings Institute, said low-income students could receive more financial aid for the 2024-25 academic year due to an expansion of Pell Grants from the 2020 spending bill.

A State Higher Education Executive Officers Association analysis estimated that nearly 43 percent of students previously ruled out for a Pell Grant will now be eligible because of a new formula to calculate grant eligibility.

“There’s going to be an expansion in that sort of low income — [but] not the lowest income bucket of people — who will likely receive more federal aid,” Meyer said.

Students and families can view financial aid tools to estimate their eligibility and can keep track of updates through StudentAid.gov to prepare for the form’s release in December.

Ten students said the simplified application will not only make the process easier but also bolster the form’s goal of helping less fortunate students afford an education.

Natalia Mejia, a junior, said filling out the FAFSA before her first year of university was stressful because she was the first in her household to complete the form.

“We didn’t have any experience from that,” Mejia said. “It was just like a long set of questions, and it was just like, my mom’s trying to sit there, trying to figure out what everything was.”

Mejia said the streamlined form will reduce anxiety when filling out the application but that the release date could coincide with finals and the holidays.

“It will be less stressful with less questions, but I don’t know if I’m gonna still do it right when they open it because especially with the timeline that they’re doing it now,” Mejia said.

Henry Naughton, a first-year, said FAFSA’s layout felt like a “barrier” to him and the form’s design was “confusing,” which played a big part in why he ended up not filling the application out. He said he supports the streamline because it means more students will apply for aid.

“Any move to make federal funding more accessible to students, or anybody whatsoever, is something that I support,” Naughton said.