Enrollment at the Universities of Wisconsin this fall increased by more than 1,000 students overall, including higher enrollments at eight universities. The overall enrollment estimate of 163,589 is the highest since 2020. The increase occurs despite significant difficulties brought on by the disruptive introduction of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, according to the Universities of Wisconsin’s website.
FAFSA has been in use since 1992, according to University of Wisconsin Office of Student Financial Aid Communications Manager Karla Weber Wandel.
“It is the single application for U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens to determine their eligibility for Federal Student Aid, and here at UW, it also considers you for any financial aid from the State of Wisconsin — for Wisconsin residents — as well as from us, the institution,” Wandel said.
After the U.S. Department of Education made transformative changes to the FAFSA this year, the Better FAFSA was implemented. The goals of these changes were to make the FAFSA a more accessible, simpler and faster process, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s website.
The Better FAFSA should take around 15 minutes to complete and has a special focus on awarding more students with the Pell Grant, the largest federal grant program available to undergraduates, according to the Department of Education. The Pell Grant is intended to support students from low-income families and, unlike loans, Federal Pell Grants are not required to be paid back unless specific conditions are met, such as early withdrawal or change in enrollment status.
“The Better FAFSA got a makeover with the hopes of making it even easier for students and their families to submit,” Wandel said. “Not only are there fewer questions on the FAFSA to answer, and fewer requirements overall, tax information is being retrieved through a direct data exchange with the IRS. The U.S. The Department of Education also estimates we should see an increase to the number of students eligible to receive the Federal Pell Grant.”
Problems with the new FAFSA form began last fall, according to NPR. The new form was released months after it was scheduled to be available, leaving colleges across the nation struggling to send out financial aid packages in time.
The form that was initially released contained a mistake, which would cost students a total of $1.8 billion dollars of financial aid. An additional mistake also prevented both non-citizens and children of non-citizens from filling out the form, according to NPR.
The fact that the Universities of Wisconsin’s overall enrollment is rising despite the FAFSA debacle is clear evidence that Wisconsinites understand that education opens doors to opportunities, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said in an email statement.
These issues were supposed to be fixed in January 2024, but they weren’t fully resolved until late March, according to the Department of Education. For Skidmore College freshman Stella Safo, filling out the FAFSA was incredibly stressful.
“Even after we finished the application, it didn’t go out to the schools and we didn’t know about our [financial aid] packages until much later than we were supposed to,” Safo said.
The need for repairs to the FAFSA form delayed the release of financial data to schools. This resulted in financial aid offers being delayed until April 2024 for a large number of colleges across the country, according to NPR.
UW freshman Kendall Hollyfield had severe technical issues filling out her FAFSA. She recalls a lack of alignment between the student FAFSA form and the parent FAFSA form.
“My page indicated that I needed a signature from my dad and stated that his form was incomplete,” Hollyfield said. “While on his end, he was told that my form wasn’t complete. In reality, both forms were complete.”
These technical issues were never resolved, and Hollyfield ended up unable to submit her FAFSA application.
The Wisconsin Tuition Promise is a scholarship program committed to making UW degrees as affordable as possible to qualified students. The applicant must be a Wisconsin resident seeking a first-time bachelor or associate degree student, file the FAFSA, have an adjusted gross income of $62,000 or lower, meet Title IV eligibility requirements, be a full time student and have been employed at some point in the preceding year, according to the Universities of Wisconsin’s website.
The Wisconsin Tuition Promise only just started in 2023, yet it was discontinued for the 2024-2025 school year due to lack of funding, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. The legislature has denied funding requests for the tuition promise programs in the past two legislative sessions.
The Wisconsin Tuition Promise was revived for prospective fall 2025 students due to a $5 million donation from the Ascendium Education Group and the Universities of Wisconsin’s commitment to matching that donation, according to the Universities of Wisconsin.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents has approved seeking an additional $855 million in the 2025–2027 state budget from Gov. Tony Evers, according to PBS Wisconsin. Rothman has pledged there won’t be any tuition increases or school closures during that two-year period if the money is supplied.
State revenue has fallen from 43% of UW’s total revenue when the UW System was created in 1974 to 14% in 2023, exacerbating the system’s financial difficulties, according to the UW-Madison and the State Budget website.
“The consequences of public funding of our universities in the bottom 10 of the nation is making access and affordability much more difficult than it should be,” Rothman wrote in the email statement. “Our hope is the legislature will provide relief for parents and students seeking educational opportunities at our UWs.”
