Dozens of colleges see financial aid crisis impact composition of freshman classes – NBC New York

The Department of Education is assuring schools and students that the financial aid process will be improved after a failed reform led to some colleges reporting a drop in enrolments.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said he is “very confident” that households will be able to apply for federal financial aid starting Dec. 1, just weeks after officials delayed the start date for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by two months to Dec. 1 for the 2025-2026 academic year.

The move is intended to buy more time to test the online form with selected students and schools, after months of problems and delays disrupted the university and college application process for millions of students this year.

“We’ve got to do better, and we’re going to do better,” Cardona told NBC News this week. In the future, the application experience will be “simpler — 15, 20 minutes,” he promised.

According to many higher education officials, the effects of months of setbacks are already visible in enrollment numbers.

About three-quarters of the 384 private institutions that responded to a recent survey by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities said FAFSA problems have changed the composition of their incoming freshman classes.

Forty-three percent said their freshman cohort is smaller than its previous one, according to a summary of findings NAICU released from the July portion of the survey, which it plans to continue conducting through September. The association of 850 schools told NBC News that 18% of respondents said FAFSA problems have reduced the racial or ethnic diversity of freshman classes, and 27% said they are registering fewer financial aid recipients.

The Department of Education acknowledged that this year’s FAFSA rollout “has been challenging for students, families, and postsecondary institutions,” a spokesperson said in response to the findings, but added that the agency could not independently verify the unpublished data from NAICU. “The Department will not rest until all eligible students receive the help they need.”

The FAFSA problems have pushed decision dates and aid offers far past the traditional May 1 deadline for many students. While most of the problems have been resolved, campus officials are exhausted and say the new Dec. 1 date must be upheld at all costs.

“It is imperative that the Department meet the delivery date with a seamless rollout and a fully functional FAFSA. ‘On or before December 1’ should be on or before December 1,” Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, said in a statement this month.

The delayed launch also means that most households will not be able to start filing their forms until weeks after the presidential election, in which the fate of the Education Ministry itself will be on the ballot.

Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have proposed dismantling the agency, which evaluates students’ eligibility for federal aid (a process many schools rely on to craft their own offers) and provides Pell grants to low-income students and federal student loans.

“I want to close the Department of Education and take education back to the states,” Trump told Elon Musk this month in a conversation on X, the social media platform owned by the billionaire and GOP donor.

Cardona declined to comment on the election, but said, “We will continue to fight to ensure that more students have access to higher education and that they do not have to pay debt for the rest of their lives.”

“Last year, there were some challenges,” he acknowledged. “We learned from that.” In the meantime, he urged applicants for the 2025-2026 academic year to prepare by creating an FSA ID at studentaid.gov so they can receive email updates.

In May, Cardona announced a “full-scale review” of the Federal Student Aid Office, which oversees FAFSA, and promised “transformational changes” at the department. This week, officials said they have processed 14.2 million FAFSAs, with no remaining backlogs, and that completion rates are down just 2.8% since last year — though the National College Attainment Network says the drop is even steeper, at nearly 10%.

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators praised the Department of Education for listening to input from administrators and “communicating the fall schedule well in advance.” But Beth Maglione, the group’s interim president and CEO, urged the administration to get everything right the first time for the next academic year.

“The fact that we are still dealing with the aftershocks of this year’s FAFSA rollout to this day shows how important it is that the process be thoroughly tested from start to finish and launched as a system, rather than in a piecemeal manner,” she said in a statement this month.

Kristi Childs is preparing to fill out the FAFSA with her daughter, Hanalise Yarbrough, 17, who is just starting her senior year of high school in DeSoto County, Mississippi. Childs said she struggled last year with filling out the form for her two 19-year-old twins, Madison and Mason Yarbrough, who are both sophomores in college, though the latter is taking a semester off.

“I really hope they get the bugs out and get the program ready to actually make it user friendly and that they see results quickly,” Childs said.

Hanalise hopes to attend Northwest Mississippi Community College for two years and then possibly transfer to John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. However, she says she has “always been a little worried” about financing her education.

“Honestly, I don’t know much about the FAFSA. I took a college and career preparation course in high school, but it all sounded very confusing,” she said.

Hanalise is a flutist who is “mostly dependent” on a potential band scholarship, but her mother said they will need federal support.

“We still have dorms, books, meals and all those things to make sure we have them covered,” Childs said, adding that a smooth and timely FAFSA process “is the only way our family can afford to send another child to college.”

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