COLUMBUS, Ohio — While college students have the chance to apply for federal aid now, families should know changes recently made.
What You Need To Know
- Gender identification, selective service registration, and drug conviction questions are no longer on the application
- The automatic zero Expected Family Contribution income threshold increased from $27,000 to $29,000
- Filing a FAFSA allows schools to respond to families quickly, especially if there’s job loss, family or medical issues
“That gender ID question is more related to efforts just to simplify the FAFSA, but the other two questions actually are changes in the Department of Education policy about how students are treated,” said Jefferson Blackburn-Smith, VP for Enrollment Management and Marketing at Otterbein University.
He said before, if male students between the ages of 18 and 25 didn’t register for selective service, they couldn’t get federal title four aid. The same thing applied if students had certain drug convictions. The goal now is to remove barriers that make it tougher to get aid.
With barriers removed now, individuals and families will also get some additional help, since the expected family contribution income threshold increased from $27,000 to $29,000.
Blackburn-Smith said this is important for families to know that they’ll be able to qualify for additional aid.
“While again, it may not seem like a big number difference from $27,000 to $29,000,” he said. “That’s a whole group of new families that know right from the start that the FAFSA is going to get them the most aid that’s available from the federal and their state governments.”
Ultimately, he said families shouldn’t assume they won’t be eligible for aid based on income.
Blackburn-Smith said the prior year’s data is used to determine aid. This means students starting in the Fall of 2023 will use their taxes from the 2021 tax year.
