Hildreth Institute in MassLive

Confusing financial aid emails leave Mass. students fearing college is out of reach

This article originally appeared in MassLive, written by Juliet Schulman-Hall.

Elyssa Ortiz repeatedly refreshed her email last month, waiting to find out how much financial aid she might receive to attend MassBay Community College.

What she didn’t expect was an email on June 23 telling her she was ineligible for MASSGrant, a need-based financial aid program, because she submitted her Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) after a deadline she was unaware of.

She sat at home with her son, shocked and confused about whether this meant she was ineligible for any financial aid.

“I was like, what am I going to do?” she said.

Ortiz is one of dozens of students who received an ineligibility notice in late June for submitting their FAFSA after May 1, according to college access organizations.

At the end of the ineligibility email, the OƯice of Student Financial Assistance said that MASSGrant is just one of several financial aid options a student can receive through a FAFSA application.

However, college access organizations said students have been reaching out, confused as to why they received the email and whether it means they can’t attend college. Many students don’t know what MASSGrant is or that it has an earlier deadline than other awards.

“The information can be overwhelming,” Ortiz said. “I just thought everything was all-in-one once you do the application.”

Students may be ineligible for MASSGrant for various reasons, such as household income exceeding a certain threshold or non-residency status. Still, higher education and policy experts are particularly concerned about how many students may be left behind after they misunderstand the ineligibility email due to the state’s confusing deadlines.

Across different state and federal web pages, the May 1 deadline is either a priority deadline or a final deadline. Adding to the confusion, the MASSGrant deadline has been retroactively pushed back for the past five years to June 30, July 1 and August 1, according to budget filings.

This year, the MASSGrant deadline was moved to June 30, according to the state budget signed on Thursday.

“The issue there is that if you get this notice, you may already make other plans by the time you then get a follow-up email that says, actually, you should check your status; you may be now eligible for MASSGrant,” said Andrew Ferson, the policy director of the Hildreth Institute, a Boston-based education think tank. “It’s an added layer of chaos for the student in the short term.”

Ferson said he worries that many students may misunderstand the email and instead decide to enter the workforce because they think they can’t afford college.

Nicole Giambusso, the spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Education, said department officials will meet with financial aid partners who have raised these concerns to determine how to address them and improve.

“We’re committed to providing clear information about financial aid programs and eligibility, and we are always appreciative of input on how to do this as best as possible,” she said

Mixed messages, real consequences for students

It has been two years since Ortiz last stepped foot on the MassBay Community College campus as a student. She left to take care of her mother, who was experiencing strokes, and she later became pregnant and gave birth to her now 11-month-old son.

This year, she said, was the year to go back to school for the medical assistant program. She’s still waiting to hear what kind of financial aid she might be eligible for. However, she now knows, through contacting uAspire, a college access organization, that there are other financial aid options beyond MASSGrant.

Femi Stoltz, the Massachusetts policy director at uAspire, said Ortiz is one of several students who have reached out, confused about the shifting and conflicting deadlines.

She worries about students who aren’t reaching out to uAspire and might believe they can’t aƯord college.

“(It) is also not a process that is going to help instill trust,” she said. The ineligibility emails are coming at a time of “compounding stress for immigrant students,” said Michele Rudy, the executive director of Cultivate Pathways, an organization that provides college and career pathway advice for immigrant students.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was suing Massachusetts over a law designed to help students access in-state tuition and financial aid at public universities, regardless of immigration status.

“The impact (of the emails), I think, is that it’s going to disenfranchise some students,” Rudy said. “It’s already a big step for students to provide their data and information to the state in these times, but they’re doing it because they’re fighting for their future.”

Cultivate Pathways is working with 32 students who received an ineligibility email because they applied after the May 1 deadline, she said.

She is aware of at least one student who canceled their college orientation after receiving the ineligibility email, thinking they didn’t qualify for community college financial aid.

How schools and the Legislature are responding

There has been persistent confusion among students about their MASSGrant and financial aid eligibility, said Iris Godes, the vice president of enrollment management at Framingham State University.

“Those of us in the schools gear up for when the notifications are going out about MASSGrant, because we’re going to be getting phone calls from students on ‘Does this mean I don’t qualify for financial aid?’” she said.

It is clear the Office of Student Financial Assistance has worked to clarify its language in emails, but there is still a communication issue, she said.

“What we’re seeing in Framingham State, for example, is a significant increase in the population that does qualify for these MASSGrant funds,” she said. “They tend to be heavily first-generation. They are low-income because you need to be low-income to qualify. And so they are the least able to understand the process and are intimidated by it sometimes.”

These students are often the least likely to pick up the phone and call the university directly, she said, adding that around 63% of the students could qualify for MASSGrant, some of whom had missed the May 1 deadline.

There needs to be more thought put into how state universities and colleges can reach out to students to help them navigate the confusing emails and language, she said.

Pam Eddinger, president of Bunker Hill Community College, said she is “absolutely for a clearer message” regarding financial aid deadlines.

She said transparency is important to prevent all students, but especially low-income, first-generation students, from deciding higher education isn’t for them.

Sen. Joanne Comerford, chair of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, said the concerns are real and that the Senate and the Massachusetts Department of Education are taking them seriously.

It’s critical to get the word out to students and clear up confusion for those who may be considering not attending college because of the ineligibility email, she said. Part of addressing these concerns will require the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education to clarify the dates and make it easier for students to understand the money available to them.

“We totally agree that this is significantly grave and requires attention,” she said. “DHE has the ability to set the financial aid deadline. Clearly, they understand that the language on their website was insufficient and actually confusing. And I share a concern that the deadline is moving.”