The FAFSA Isn’t Fixed for Everyone
By Eric Hoover, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Luis Vergara felt a surge of hope when he saw the news. On April 30, the U.S. Department of Education announced changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that, the agency said, would enable students whose parents lack a Social Security number to complete the form.
Vergara, a high-school senior in Houston, was born in the United States. So he’s entitled to federal aid even though his mother, a Mexican immigrant, lacks U.S. citizenship. He had been attempting to finish the FAFSA since early February, but, like many students from mixed-status families, he kept encountering problems with the online application that prevented him from completing it.