FAFSA Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Justice Declares State Of Emergency Over FAFSA Forms

During his regular press briefing Tuesday, Justice said the declaration allows the state to bypass FAFSA requirements for state programs such as the PROMISE scholarship.

Gov. Jim Justice has declared a state of emergency for the state’s higher educational system.

During his regular press briefing Tuesday, Justice said the declaration allows the state to bypass FAFSA requirements for state programs such as the PROMISE scholarship.

“We have to find a way to bypass this FAFSA requirement that will provide eligibility to our high school kids in regards to their scholarships, especially PROMISE and on and on and on,” he said. “We have at this time a 40 percent decline in applications and the reason for that is, our kids don’t know what to do.”

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students. The federal government released a shortened FAFSA at the end of last year that was intended to simplify the financial aid process for students, but the rollout of the new form has been plagued with delays and technical issues.

Justice was joined by Higher Education Policy Commission Chancellor Sarah Tucker, who assured West Virginia students they will get the support they deserve.

“To the students and families, I want you to know that we have your back,” she said. “We want you to know that if you qualify for PROMISE and or the higher education grant, you will get that money for this fall regardless of your FAFSA status.”

Tucker warned members of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability at an interim meeting earlier this month that the confusion over the new form was causing delays for the state’s educational programs and would require a creative solution.

“With Governor Justice’s proclamation, students who qualify and apply for the Promise scholarship by September 1 will receive an award of up to $5,500 for the 2024-2025 academic year,” Tucker said. “If a student completed last year’s FAFSA and qualifies for our need based higher education grant, they will receive the award of up to $3,400 for the fall semester.”

Tucker and Justice both implored students and parents to call the commission’s hotline at 1-877-987-7664 and to keep working on completing their FAFSAs.

According to Tucker, students who do not have a FAFSA on file can also qualify for Higher Education grants by presenting their eligibility letter for Department of Human Services programs such as SNAP, Medicaid or WIC to their higher education institution’s financial aid office.

Justice indicated West Virginia is leading the country by declaring a state of emergency to try and resolve FAFSA-related issues.

“We’ve got to still get you through this FAFSA requirement for you to get fed dollars,” he said. “But to get you state dollars, this state of emergency absolutely, we ought to be able to move forward.”

Wayne Co. High School Receives National Recognition For College Readiness

Spring Valley High School in Wayne County has been named a 2023 School of Excellence by ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning

Spring Valley High School in Wayne County has been named a 2023 School of Excellence by ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning’s American College Application Campaign (ACAC).

ACAC is a national effort to increase the number of first-generation college students and students from low-income families pursuing a college degree or other higher education credential.

Spring Valley is one of 27 schools from across the country to be recognized for its College Application and Exploration Week and its work with West Virginia GEAR UP to remove many of the common obstacles in applying to college.

Debra Asbury, school counselor and GEARUP coordinator at Spring Valley, said that means providing every chance for students to learn about different careers.

“It’s our job…to provide them with opportunities to meet with admissions counselors, FAFSA coordinator, anything that’s getting them ready for post secondary, whether that is for a trade school, beauty school, or whether that’s to go to Harvard,” she said.

The application process can be confusing and daunting, and Asbury said exposing students to opportunities after graduation and helping them fill out forms is key to their future success.

“They need to break the cycle for some of these kids because they’re from areas where their parents didn’t graduate or they didn’t go on to school, and they’ve got to know their goals are achievable,” she said.

Lindsay Ellis is also a school counselor and GEARUP coordinator at Spring Valley. She said the recognition was an honor, especially after doing the same work for several years.

“These are things that we’ve always done as school counselors, but it really means a lot to get recognized for that,” she said. “I feel that all school counselors, especially the ones that we come in contact with, everybody is deserving.“

Asbury and Ellis believe that Spring Valley stood out in part because of a FAFSA completion rate of 62.5 percent, the highest in recent school history, as well as a strong social media presence.

“Show the community, show parents what we’re doing,” Ellis said. “Keep everybody in the loop, which is very important.”

Both counselors recognize the importance of the school-wide investment, from administrators to students, that was needed to receive the ACAC’s attention.

FAFSA Issues, College Going Rate And More Presented To LOCEA

A change to a federal financial aid form for college students is having major ripple effects through West Virginia’s higher education system.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students but a recent attempt to simplify the form has caused delays for college applicants across the country.

“At this point this year, we have six million students who have filled out a FAFSA,” said Sarah Tucker, chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission. “At this point last year, we had 17 million, this is across the country. So we have a significant deficit right now that we’re trying to make up and trying to figure out exactly what’s going on and how best to help our students.”

Tucker told an interim meeting of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability Sunday the Student Aid Index (SAI), which determines student need, is now being determined by a new interface between the IRS and the federal Department of Education that is not working correctly. Further delays occur because users of the new system are not notified of errors until after the form has been submitted.

Tucker told the commission the faulty SAI formula is causing delays for the state’s educational programs as well.

“I need to know how much money the federal government is going to be giving to all of our students in order to know what our award is going to be for West Virginia Invests,” she said.
“We’re really sort of stuck in limbo until this functionality gets fixed.”

The Higher Education Grant Program, West Virginia Invests and PROMISE Scholarships are all currently delayed.

Nationally, West Virginia is faring slightly better than average with the new FAFSA. As of last month, more than 6,000 seniors across the state have filled out the form, a number Tucker credits to hundreds of FAFSA workshops the HEPC and other organizations have hosted.

“We’re actually ranking 20th in the number of high school seniors who have completed the FAFSA,” she said. “The West Virginia Department of Education has done a lot of work as have all of our institutions in trying to do FAFSA workshops to make sure that our students know how to fill out those forms.”

Tucker said West Virginia Invest and PROMISE may revert to awarding the same amounts as last year without adjustments to ensure students are not further delayed.

“I think that may be where we end up because I don’t want to keep stringing students along,” she said. “I want to do the best we can to make sure that they know that they can go to college. Our college going rate is finally ticking up. We have this great momentum.”

College Going Rate

The oversight commission also heard a report on the state’s college going rate from Zornitsa Georgieva, director of research and analysis for HEPC. She highlighted a one percent increase in post-secondary enrollment from 2022 to 2023, including enrollment in trade programs or other career and technical pathways.

“For the class of 2023, the college going grade is 47.4 percent,” Georgieva said. “We’ve had more than 7,900 high school graduates continue into some kind of post-secondary education this year. I think that really speaks for the hard work of high school staff, high school counselors, teachers, our staff in our secondary system, as well as post-secondary institutions and staff that works around outreach. And providing information about financial aid.”

In 2021 the national immediate college enrollment rate was 62 percent, which puts West Virginia 15 percent below the national average. “Immediate college enrollment” is the metric used by the National Center for Educational Statistics and looks at students who enrolled in a post-secondary institution the fall after graduation.

Georgieva said when looking at the 12 months after graduation, including spring enrollments, West Virginia’s college going rate jumps to 49 percent. Rates differ from county to county, and 36 of 55 of West Virginia’s counties increased their college going rate year over year.

Benchmarks and Screeners

As part of House Bill 3035 – also known as the Third Grade Success Act – that passed last year, screeners or benchmark assessments must be administered at the beginning of the school year and repeated mid-year and at the end of the school year to determine student progression in reading and mathematics kindergarten through third grade.

Sonya White, state deputy superintendent, presented the results of the mid-year screeners to the commission.

“Overall, we were encouraged by the results, we had a decrease in the number of students… who needed that intensive intervention,” she said.

Even accounting for regular academic gains in the first half of the school year, White said the need for intensive intervention decreased from the start of the year to mid-year. She said the screeners are also identifying new students that need intensive interventions and are getting the help they need.

“On the front side are the literacy results,” White said. “We had an average decrease of 5.4 percent of students that needed intervention in grades K through three, and an average of 6 percent of the students in grades four through eight were scoring in the lowest category.”

White presented even higher decreases in intensive intervention for mathematics, “with an average of 6 percent for K through three and an average of 8.1 percent for four through eight.”

Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, expressed concern at some of the numbers that showed an increase in the need for math intervention between first and second grade.

“Do we have schools looking at why there might be that big change from only 17 percent initially in first grade up to almost 40 percent when they get the second?” he said.

White cautioned that the state is still in its first year of collecting the data but theorized that those numbers could be a result of lowered learning opportunities three years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are being proactive,” she said. “We are also looking at getting more detailed data for each section so we know what pieces of mathematics are struggling with.”

Policy 7212

Earlier in the meeting, legislators heard a brief description of changes to Department of Education Policy 7212. The policy applies to the transfer of students, both inside and out of their county of residence.

Student transfers became a point of contention this past fall after legislation passed during the 2023 regular session changed eligibility rules for student athletes after transfer. Gov. Jim Justice and others urged the legislature to revisit the issue during this year’s legislative session, but no action was taken by the legislature.

The proposed changes to Policy 7212 include significant clarifications of the requirement for county boards of education to implement an open enrollment policy for nonresident students, including a new allowance for boards to revoke applicants for chronic absenteeism or behavioral infractions. There is no mention of athletics in the proposed changes.

The changes to 7212, as well as other policies, are open to public comment until May 13.

Miscalculation Means Fewer College Students May Get Federal Aid Than Expected

Fewer college students than anticipated will be eligible for Pell Grants this year after a miscalculation from education officials. Last week, Congress passed a bill rectifying the error, but reducing student eligibility for the program.

Fewer college students may be eligible for federal financial aid this year than initially anticipated, following a miscalculation from education officials.

Three years ago, the U.S. Department of Education began to overhaul its Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The FAFSA determines how much federal and state aid college students are eligible for based on factors like household income and assets, but has long been criticized as overly complicated.

The overhaul slashed the number of FAFSA questions by about two-thirds. It also allowed students to submit financial data through the Internal Revenue Service directly, instead of reporting it themselves.

Additionally, the change reconfigured the FAFSA eligibility formula, expanding federal aid eligibility to more students. These adjustments initially brought a three-month delay to this year’s FAFSA process.

But that delay only grew when, in January, education officials discovered a miscalculation in the new aid formula overstated how many students qualify for a federal grant called the Pell Grant by at least 100,000.

The Pell Grant provides low-income students thousands of tuition dollars that they are not required to repay.

In the weeks following the discovery, lawmakers have scrambled to fix the FAFSA process so students can receive financial aid information before making college decisions.

On Thursday, the United States Congress passed a resolution that corrected the formula error, reducing the number of students who will be eligible for federal grants in the year ahead.

Some Democratic lawmakers expressed concern in reducing financial aid eligibility. However, several Republican lawmakers said the resolution passed last week preserves the integrity of the FAFSA process.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., expressed support for the formula fix in a press release Monday. She said it ensured this year’s federal aid distribution adheres to the law, and that it will end the repeated FAFSA delays.

“I was proud to help author a fix to the FAFSA Simplification Act,” she said. “I am hopeful that this fix will sustain and shore up the Pell Grant program for the future.”

The Department of Education plans to help colleges and universities process FAFSA information this month. West Virginia University and many other state institutions across the country have delayed application deadlines because of the complications.

WVU Extends Certain Financial Application Deadlines

West Virginia University is extending multiple key deadlines for incoming students following delays at the federal level.

West Virginia University is extending multiple key deadlines for incoming students following delays at the federal level for the 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA.

WVU’s deadline for the financial aid FAFSA priority consideration is now April 1, moved back from March 1.

The U.S. Department of Education has been working to create a simplified version of the form, which unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students, for three years after bipartisan legislation was passed in 2021.

The new FAFSA was published at the end of last year on Dec. 31, 2023. However, the FAFSA is normally published in early October, and the new release was almost three months later than normal.

Other state colleges and universities across the country, including both the California and Pennsylvania state university systems, have also extended their deadlines for applicants.

Legislators Learn About Updated Federal Forms, Bullying By The Numbers

A federal college financial aid form is being simplified, but the timeline is causing concern and the state education department has new bullying statistics.

A federal college financial aid form is being simplified, but the timeline is causing concern.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA, unlocks both federal and state financial aid for students.

The 10-page document can be daunting for both students and parents.

Sarah Armstrong Tucker, chancellor of the Higher Education Policy Commission, told the Legislative Oversight Commission on Education Accountability Sunday the form asked for information that was difficult to find, more so for students in non-traditional situations such as foster care, guardianships or homelessness.

“Lots of people felt that the FAFSA was so complicated that it made a lot of students opt out from going to college,” she said. ”There were a lot of kids who just didn’t have access to the information that they needed in order to fill out that FAFSA so that they could get the federal financial aid and then indeed get some of that state aid.“

Tucker told the commission that for the past three years, the U.S. Department of Education has been working to simplify the form. One of the expected changes will allow applicants to automatically connect their tax documents to the FAFSA.

“I don’t have to, as a parent, go to my IRS form, find all those numbers, put those numbers in the right boxes,” Tucker said. “It makes sure everything’s correct, which will be wonderful and great and will absolutely simplify the process, right? But that’s been a challenge, trying to get those systems that have never talked to each other before linked together. That has been really, really difficult.”

She said the changes are welcome, but the new form has yet to be released and that is causing delays for college applicants.

“Typically we would have had October the first of 2023 through now for our high school seniors who have been filling out that document. They have not been,” Tucker said. “Moreover, this is a new FAFSA. So we haven’t seen it.”

Tucker says the new form is expected to be released December 31, and she warned legislators to expect communication from their constituents.

“Once this rolls out in January, there’s going to be some concern from folks about what this looks like and deadlines for our own financial aid programs,” she said.

Tucker flagged one final potential complication regarding a calculation of the expected family contribution to higher education expenses.

“That tells us how much money a family should be able to contribute to a student loan to college,” she said. “Those tables include things like inflationary rates. Those tables haven’t been updated since 2020. So the recent inflationary rates that we’ve had are not included in those tables. And we don’t believe they’re going to be included probably until next year.”

The lowest income students are still expected to receive maximum Pell grants, but Tucker said students from higher income families may be leaving money on the table. Ultimately she said her office will not know until the new form is published, but the HEPC is trying to be proactive and anticipate changes in the interim.

Harassment and Intimidation

Jeff Kelley, officer of accountability and assessment for the West Virginia Department of Education presented a harassment, intimidation and bullying report for the 2022-23 school year to the meeting. The report showed that referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying behaviors accounted for 2.1 percent of all student disciplinary referrals across the state.

“I think it’s about 18 and a half incidents per day across the state,” Kelley said.

Kelley said middle school aged students accounted for the vast majority of harassment, intimidation, or bullying referrals, seven out of every 10 originating from sixth through ninth grades.

Male students were the majority of referrals at 74 percent. The data also showed discrepancies based on race.

“White students represented in discipline data at a slightly lower rate than their representation in the specific population, that’s 82 versus 88 percent,” Kelley said. “Black students and multiracial students were present at a higher rate than their respective population representations.”

Black students account for 4 percent of the state’s student population, but represented 10 percent of referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying. Multiracial students account for 7 percent of the state’s student population, but also represented 10 percent of referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

“A risk ratio calculation indicates the black students to be about 2.25 times more likely to experience those referrals,” Kelley said. “With multiracial students, that number is 1.5 times.”

Students with disabilities, or who were eligible for special education services accounted for one third of all referrals for harassment, intimidation, or bullying.

“Students with disabilities were about two times more likely to be referred,” Kelley said.

Committee Chair Del. Joe Ellington, R-Mercer, asked if Kelley thought interventions were proving effective in stopping students from repeating the offenses. Kelley said he believed the data supported that notion.

“What we’re seeing, as I think schools and counties are taking proactive approaches, they’re educating students, staff and parents about ‘What is bullying? What’s it look like? What are the signs?’ and when we see these things, what is the appropriate way to respond?” he said.