Opinion: Financial delays ensure that college is becoming a class privilege

“Madelyn, we're reaching out to share an update about your 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form.”

This was the opening line of the treacherous email that I received a few weeks ago. It continued:

“After submitting your form, you received a confirmation email stating that your FAFSA information would be shared with your school in late January. However, we're making further improvements [in adjusting our calculations]. We've adjusted our processing timeline to accommodate these updates, which means we'll start sending FAFSA information to schools in the first half of March.”

Though I was irked at what this email suggested, I was certainly not surprised.

Like most high school and college students nationwide, I had grown accustomed to dealing with the frustrating and vague updates sent out from the FAFSA: the notoriously complicated, unreliable and inaccurate application designed to help students obtain federal aid and loans.

After surveying your family’s assets, savings and income, the completed FAFSA — in theory — is what allows your university to design your financial aid package, complete with grants, need-based scholarships, Work-Study authorization and approval for federal loans.

Without correct completion of the FAFSA, no student is eligible for any need-based aid.

This year, the FAFSA has been delayed several consecutive times, resulting in a five-month delay in the delivery of financial information to schools. At the moment, it is unlikely that anyone will receive aid information until well into April.

This is extremely detrimental for students who need assistance in affording their desired school — or any school for that matter.

For high school seniors, this makes it practically impossible to commit to a university, as they have no way of knowing what the total cost of attendance will be. As a typical college commitment date falls in the first week of May, this will force both students and universities to operate on unfairly tight deadlines.

For those who are already enrolled, they have no way of knowing how their cost of attendance will change.

For most students, this suggests many future months filled with undeserved anxiety and stress — anxiety and stress that many people are all too familiar with. This emotional weight is part of the lack of accessibility that is found so frequently in academic spaces.

These delays are very telling in regards to who universities and federal programs value. It becomes more clear by the day that attending a four year, out-of-state university is a class privilege.

Tuition rates are rapidly inflating, right alongside expenses for housing, board and travel. As an out-of-state student, my cost of attendance at UNC this year was close to $60,000. And it is not going to get any cheaper.

These prices, without the reliability of consistent financial aid, make it outrageously difficult for students to consider college as a feasible route for their future. This is horrifying on multiple levels. Refusal to make education more accessible is an intentional choice to ensure that the wealthy retain their influence.

It is no secret that absurdly wealthy people have dominated the academic field for decades. The Ivy League program and other elite schools have been horrifically transparent about the ease in which one can pay for student acceptances with monstrous financial donations — or, in other words, bribes.

But for those who cannot afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket to attend college, they are left at the mercy of those who make the decision for them.

Education is not a privilege. It’s a right. Students everywhere deserve to have the ability to pursue undergraduate and graduate programs, to develop technical skills, to obtain professional experience and to foster a love of learning.

In a hellish, apocalyptic state of socioeconomics, financial assurance and aid must be protected. It is the responsibility of those in federal and local government to ensure that safeguards are in place to protect the rights of lower- and middle-class students.

@madelyn_rowley

@dthopinion | opinion@dailytarheel.com