The Obama administration has announced changes to FAFSA, a form used to apply for federal aid to pay for college.

The changes, which take effect in October 2016, will allow students to apply for financial aid in October rather than January and also submit the previous year’s tax returns, according to a fact sheet issued by the White House.

The announcement of the changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid comes shortly after the Obama administration released plans for a new college scorecard, which is used to help prospective students rate the value of different higher education institutions.

About two million students who are enrolled in college and eligible for a Pell Grant never applied for financial aid, according to the White House fact sheet. The fact sheet added that an unknown number of possible college students didn’t enroll because they did not know that aid is available.

President Barack Obama is calling on Congress to eliminate 30 more questions from the FAFSA form, including questions about investments and net worth, according to the fact sheet.

On a White House conference call Monday morning, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said it will now take only 20 minutes to complete the FASFA form, compared to past years, when “you almost had to have a degree in accounting to complete it,” he said.

“The form itself was literally a barrier to entry — it made it harder to go to college, not easier,” Duncan said. “The fact that the financial aid form was a barrier to go to college was absolutely insane.”

He added that the Obama administration is asking higher education institutions to help in the implementation of the new policy.

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators expects hundreds of higher education institutions to adjust their financial aid processes to align with the new policy, according to the White House fact sheet.

All of the University of California system has committed to the new policy along with seven other institutions, according to the fact sheet. Syracuse University has not.

Ryan Williams, SU’s associate vice president for enrollment management, said in an email that SU is supportive of making the process easier for parents and students. He added that while the process can be challenging, the changes Obama has announced “will make it simpler to apply and improve data accuracy.”

Williams said SU will be assessing its internal processes given the change.

Published on September 14, 2015 at 11:14 pm

Contact Justin: jmatting@syr.edu | @jmattingly306