ODESSA, Texas — The Department of Education has just made some updates to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid - also known as FAFSA - for the 2024-2025 school years.
University of the Permian Basin Director of Financial Aid Scott Lapinski explained that these changes were made to streamline the process of getting financial aid.
"The changes to FAFSA that the Department of Education made is making it so that more students are more eligible for financial aid," Lapinski said. "We’ve done testing in our system and we have seen a big increase in students that will be eligible for financial aid based on data that we’ve looked at."
Some changes made include expanded eligibility, an expansion of available languages from two to 11 and less questions on the FAFSA form from 108 to 36.
Just because it is easier to apply for it doesn't mean there aren't still some academic requirement to apply for it.
"So there is what's called satisfactory academic progress," Lapinski said. "That consists of a student maintaining a 2.0 GPA and completing at least 66.7 percent of their classes."
Keep in mind that it isn’t just high school seniors who this applies to, as all prospective college students will be feeling the effects and reaping the benefits.
“All students every year need to complete the FAFSA," Lapinski said. "If you are transferring to a new university or a community college or are a first-time student, you have to complete the FAFSA every year in order to receive financial aid.”
However, some older students who are used to the older system will need to get used to the changes, specifically the change from an expected family contribution to a student aid index (SAI).
“There are going to be changes, it is now called student aid index and the number can sometimes be negative when in the past it was always zero or positive," Lapinski said. "The older students just have to get used to the changes that are going to be coming to the department of education.”
The SAI will reflect big changes made to factors used in how financial aid will be calculated.
More information on the changes to FAFSA can be found here.