Federal student aid applications faced long delays this semester to many students’ chagrin.
However, Colorado Mesa University (CMU) Integrated Resources for Information and Solutions (IRIS) announced The Wait is Over a simplification program to speed up the application process. Now students can connect their FAFSA application to their IRS tax forms to purportedly write a FAFSA in 15 minutes.
“Now it’s a much simpler process of connecting to the IRS and pulling in the actual information that’s needed instead of students having to guess. So that’s a big part of it. It makes it a lot clearer from what I’ve seen [. . .] It makes it a lot simpler to go ‘okay, no further information is needed’ or ‘here’s what is next and is needed for verification,” CMU Assistant Director of IRIS Wes Kosel said.
Part of this new process that the federal government has changed within the FAFSA, has made it easier for students to work their way through the application.
“So I’ve seen that just being much easier. I’ve heard of students in the past having to spend hours on completing their FAFSA to now it taking 15 minutes,” said Kosel
This change to the FAFSA application process may be welcomed, given how long it has taken for students to fill out the form in the past, but the new system’s rollout did not work as smoothly as some would have preferred.
FAFSA delays have swept the country this semester due to an error in how student aid eligibility was calculated, so any way to speed the process up is in high demand.
This puts CMU’s IRIS in a unique position, where they are beginning to run the calculations separately, based on student’s previous FAFSA information, these will be confirmed later in the year, as IRIS begins to receive student data from the government.
Kosel noted that while there are still delays on the government end of the process submitting the forms for the the application to the federal government is now much easier.
“The part that we’re still waiting on – so the wait isn’t fully over – is that now with the new process, there’s delays in it getting through the federal government departments and the IRS to then get back to CMU for processing. So we’re still on that, and that is supposed to be happening this month,” explained Kosel
IRIS adapted quickly to the nationwide delays by introducing the Wait is Over and an aid estimate calculator so that students struggling with delays or budgeting. This will allow students the ability to estimate the financial aid they’re eligible for and apply for financial aid quickly.
Despite the frustrating hold ups with FAFSA, Kosel recommends still applying as early as possible as FAFSA is first-come-first-serve.
“Students should be looking at making sure that the ‘24-’25 FAFSA is complete, so that way it does get processed and award offers can come out for the next fall. Iris offers financial advising appointments for students that want help with that. There’s also several events run through admissions and financial aid that are happening throughout the next few months where students can get help completing that,” Kosel said.
Students who apply earlier will know sooner rather than later what their financial assistance from the federal and state governments as well as what they are eligible for through the school, whether that be work-study, grants or loans.
The CMU general scholarship application is also currently open, and provides students with a way to apply for hundreds of scholarships that are offered by the school as well as local sponsors and contributors to any number of degree programs that CMU has to offer
