The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2025-2026 school year opened on Dec. 1 for all students after a phased rollout. The FAFSA is a way for students across the country to get money from the federal government that they can use to pay for college. Park seniors applying to college are starting to fill out the FAFSA out as they start getting their college acceptances.
According to class of 2025 counselor Heidi Cosgrove, filling out the FAFSA can be challenging, especially if the student and parents are new to the document and have trouble finding the time to fill it out.
“Students will need a lot of their family’s financial information and will need a lot of tax information,” Cosgrove said. “Students saying, ‘Oh, I just need to find this tax,’ that’s a whole other life experience. Students need to work with their families, and have time to sit down and get it in.”
Senior Avery Noren said they did not know much about the FAFSA before this year beyond what they were told by colleges and had not thought about it much before now.
“I wish I had researched it more. They tell you it’s coming, colleges send you emails and stuff,” Noren said. “I didn’t focus on it, I knew it existed (but) I didn’t really know what it consisted of.”
Senior Ari Rose said completing the FAFSA was challenging given the amount of information it requires and his parents also struggle with the amount of information they need to have on hand.
“My biggest struggle with the FAFSA is the amount of information you have to fill out, not only for me but also for my parents and their careers and salaries. I’m not super excited with the amount of information I’m gonna have to fill out,” Rose said.
Cosgrove said the FAFSA is difficult and time-consuming for parents as they have to find a lot of tax information and it is hard to find where the information is located.
“When it’s my daughter’s turn in a couple of years, I don’t even know where my tax stuff is. I know it’s somewhere, but if she were to say ‘I need the tax information for blah blah blah,’ I need to figure out where I put that,” Cosgrove said. “As a parent, I need to remember where I put this stuff. It’s a process and it’s not going to be done in a couple hours.”
Noren said not having a traditional family made the FAFSA harder to complete and they had to actively seek out more information.
“My parents didn’t claim custody of me in court because they weren’t married, so there’s no legal custody situation of who I belong to, and the FAFSA doesn’t understand that. I had to email a lot of people,” Noren said.
Cosgrove said filling out the FAFSA is harder for non-traditional families because the FAFSA focuses on the traditional family makeup, but there are other resources that these families can use, such as colleges themselves.
“Financials are not so black and white and crystal clear cut. There is a lot of story behind a family’s (finances). Sometimes that is not taken into consideration with that student,” Cosgrove said. “That’s where families can talk to the financial aid office of the place where that student is going to to talk more intimately about the financials of the family so that particular financial aid office of that college can have that more in-depth conversation to see how they can help support the family as well.”
Rose said he would like to see Park provide more help to students with the FAFSA by having more professionals talk to students about the process of filling it out and the rules surrounding the document and direct students to helpful websites.
“Something that Park could definitely do better is have someone from the FAFSA or just have someone from Park who is educated on the FAFSA come into senior classrooms and just kind of explain, ‘here’s what the FAFSA is, here’s how you do it,’” Rose said. “It would also be nice if they showed us more resources like some websites to go to for help.”
Cosgrove said it is important for students to fill out the FAFSA even if their family makes a lot of money because doing so costs very little other than time and students can get a lot of benefit from it.
“Students say ‘I’m not going to fill out the FAFSA because my family makes too much money,’” Cosgrove said. “That’s a common one that I hear and I think FAFSA would be one of the first ones to tell you there’s nothing to lose except time and brain cells because you just never know.”
Noren said they believe everyone should fill out the FAFSA during their senior year even if they believe that their parents make too much money for them to qualify for any financial aid.
“Some people just don’t want to do it because their parents make too much money so they think it’s not worth it,” Noren said. “If your parents make too much money, do it anyway. It doesn’t hurt to fill it out.”
