Medha Imam

Northwestern University

With average student debt levels rising to astronomical highs, making college affordable has become an increasingly complex challenge. President Obama thinks so, too, as can be seen by his recent proposal for free community college.

Yet according to a study from NerdScholar, around $2.9 billion of federal grant money was left unclaimed after high school seniors eligible for Pell Grants -- which don't have be paid back -- neglected to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in the last academic year.

NerdScholar, a higher-education branch of the financial literacy website NerdWallet, found that 47% of the nation’s high school graduates missed out on federal Pell Grant money. Qualified students could have received a maximum amount of $5,645 in Pell Grant awards in the 2013-2014 application cycle.

In the NerdScholar analysis, the number of Pell-eligible graduates who didn’t complete the FAFSA totaled to 821,041 students nationwide. In California alone, more than 100,000 seniors did not file their FAFSA and, as a result, missed out on $396,401,205 in potential Pell Grant aid.

“I wasn’t shocked when I saw the total number as much as I was shocked when I saw just the sheer number of students who weren’t filling out the FAFSA,” said Gianna Sen-Gupta, author of the study.

“It’s astonishing to know that there are scholarships out there to help support kids, but kids are just not taking the effort to apply to those scholarships,” said Vaibhav Dhatta, a sophomore at Babson College and mentor at Moneythink, a peer mentorship program that trains college volunteers to talk with high school students about financial education.

Many believe the problem is a time-consuming and often confusing application process that includes more than 100 questions.

In fact, last year Congress proposed an initiative to simplify the process. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) introduced a bipartisan bill, the Financial Aid Simplification and Transparency Act, which would shorten the FAFSA form to only two questions: “What is your family size?” and “What was your household income two years ago?”

Related: Where are we now with the FAST Act proposal?

Melissa Emrey-Arras, director of education, workforce and income security issues at the Government Accountability Office, reflected on study groups conducted in 2009 to identify issues relating to simplifying the FAFSA.

“Many of the participants supported changing the FAFSA and the underlying formula to help simplify it,” Emrey-Arras said.

Emrey-Arras also commented on how some have said that shortening the formula, even if it doesn’t change how much one receives, “could encourage people to apply for financial aid and potentially for college.”

Kathryn Cua, a freshman at the University of Missouri, filled out the FAFSA and did receive financial aid last year. However, she described the application process as “frustrating” and “unnerving” due to the time it took her to answer the required 108 questions. Cua would prefer the shorter version since it is less invasive, but questions “how comprehensive it is and its ability to provide adequate aid.”

The Obama administration is equally concerned about the lack of Pell Grant applications. As stated in The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2015, President Obama hopes to improve college education by continuing his “commitment to Pell Grants” and “providing bonuses to colleges that improve educational outcomes for Pell Grant recipients.”

Related: FAFSA application tips for students with undocumented parents

Sen-Gupta said there are indeed "many FAFSA completion initiatives that are going on (in the White House and Department of Education) just to increase the number of students in high school and in college that are filling out the FAFSA and applying for aid."

He added: “We went into this knowing that this was an issue that needs to be addressed. And we wanted to be advocating for more students going to college and taking advantage of the aid that’s available.”



Medha Imam is a student at Northwestern University.

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