For weeks, every time Mike Najarro attempted to log into the federal student aid portal, he received an error message about server maintenance.
The Washington-Liberty High School senior watched with growing anxiety as the portal faltered, concerned these technical delays could thwart his chance to be the first in his family to attend college.
“It was just another waiting game and I had just to sit and wait for it and it was stressing me out a lot since, again, I’m not sure if I was able to afford a lot of these schools,” he told a group of local school administrators and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) during a roundtable at Marymount University Ballston Center on Monday.
Najarro isn’t alone. Many seniors and school leaders across Northern Virginia say that ongoing glitches and delays involving the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) portal threaten the college prospects of tens of thousands of low-income high school seniors nationwide.
In Virginia, FAFSA completions have fallen by nearly 30% from last year, per Department of Education data. School leaders are concerned that these challenges are causing students to take gap years because they can’t confirm their college acceptance without knowing if they have enough financial aid.
“One of our programs in Arlington said there more than triple that students reporting that they’re going to take gap year because they can’t make that decision,” said Julie Crawford, chief equity, inclusion, and student support officer for Arlington Public School (APS).
Washington-Liberty High School college and career counselor Elysse Catino noted that many of the students she works with are the first in their families to attend college and are completing the FAFSA independently.
She says this poses a barrier for those who may not know their family’s financial history or have the vocabulary to answer specific questions. Catino noted that several students have also complained about waiting on the phone for hours to speak to a FAFSA representative, only to be told that the representatives won’t talk to them without a parent.
“It’s an equity issue… and that’s one of the biggest things that we need to try and fix going forward,” she said.
Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 to make it easier to apply for federal student aid. The act changed how financial need is calculated, expanded Pell Grant access, and simplified the FAFSA form starting in the 2024–25 school year.
Although Warner called the legislation “well-intentioned,” he said its implementation was a “big screw-up” and said he and his colleagues are pressuring the Department of Education to fix the bugs in the online portal.
“There’s no silver bullet on how we fix what happened,” he told reporters following the discussion. “But what I can do is work to guarantee that next year — as we roll into the summer and the school year — it works better.”
In the meantime, a spokesperson for APS confirmed that after months of waiting for news about his financial aid, Najarro plans to attend UVa in the fall.
