College students across the country are all well acquainted with FAFSA, or financial aid. However, the forms used for application are notorious for being complicated and tedious to fill out. The FAFSA of 2024 will be subject to major changes this coming spring semester. Known as the FAFSA Simplification Act, the most dramatic of these changes will affect lower-class families. Making it easier for lower class students to receive aid. Strikingly the number of questions asked for those asking for aid will be decreased from 108 to 36.   

The questions will be more concerned with the size of the family of the student applying for aid. The purpose is to better determine the tax returns of the parents of students. With college debt growing increasingly higher, coupled with schools around the country struggling to stay open, the purpose of this change is to help low-income students avoid taking out loans and receive grants that they would not have to pay back. 

Questions will be added about race, sex, and ethnicity while simultaneously dropping questions about selective service registration and drug convictions. These questions once again are in an attempt to make it harder for college boards to discriminate against low income, BIPOC, incarcerated and/or previously convicted students. In regard to the questions about race, sex, and ethnicity, they will have no effect on whether a student will receive aid but instead is meant to make sure college boards are not discriminating against students. 

Access to federal Pell Grant will also be expanded by the Simplification Act. Eligibility for the grant will be determined by family size and whether or not the student or their family falls on or under the federal poverty line. Interestingly, incarcerated students, in both federal and state penitentiaries, will now once again have access to the full grant. If this goes into effect it will hugely expand enrollment for incarcerated students of all ages across the country; making it easier for them to gain an education on the collegiate level. 

The Pell grant will also be awarded to students whose schools closed or to students that have found their schools misled them or were in some way fraudulent about what kind of aid they could receive.  Although the changes have not yet been implemented, students should be on the lookout in the near future. 

For more information on the FAFSA Simplification Act visit their website at  

https://studentaid.gov/help-center/answers/article/fafsa-simplification-act