KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Drastically fewer students across the nation and in Missouri and Kansas are applying for federal student aid after months of delays and complications with the FAFSA process.
Data from the National College Attainment Network show 12.4 percent fewer students have applied for FAFSA through the same time in 2024 compared to 2023. Missouri is down 12.2 percent. Kansas is down 14.5 percent.
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It started when the Department of Education attempted to streamline this year’s FAFSA form to make it easier to fill out. Some experts say it is streamlined in some ways but additional steps for students’ parents and other unforeseen snags in the system created challenges for other students.
“They didn’t anticipate the problems that they had but they had them so everybody had to adjust to all those frustrations,” said independent educational consultant James Heryer .
“The admissions people had to adjust to it, the high school counselors and independents like myself had to adjust to it and the parents and students had to adjust to it.”