FAFSA failure leads to far fewer Utah high school seniors applying for student aid

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A recent report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that hundreds of thousands of students faced significant challenges in securing financial aid due to a series of delays in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) process.

The updated version of FAFSA was released 90 days later than usual, causing a cascade of issues.

Records were processed 161 days late, and paper FAFSA forms experienced delays of more than 300 days.

As a result, the Government Accountability Office reports submissions from high school seniors and other first-time applicants dropped by 9% this past year.

The Department of Education’s call center received 5.4 million calls in the first five months of the FAFSA application period, but 4 million of those calls went unanswered.

In Utah, FAFSA submissions from high school seniors were down 10 percent from the previous year.

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