Millions of people each year fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in hopes of receiving money to pay for college. The majority of students enrolled at many California universities receive financial aid, which is often the key to unlocking a person’s path to a college degree.
A significant number of those students live in families in which a member is not authorized to live in the United States. Amid ongoing problems with a revised FAFSA process, these applicants continue to have problems filling out the application.
“Our main concern was our students from mixed-status families,” said Shelveen Ratnam, spokesperson for the California Student Aid Commission.
The commission oversees a program that sets aside billions of dollars in financial aid that’s given out to applicants who first fill out the FAFSA form.
Typically, an applicant in a mixed status household is a U.S. citizen, but one or both parents or caretakers are in the U.S. without proper authorization. That means there is no Social Security number to enter in the application.
How many students are affected?
It’s hard to say exactly how many California applicants live in mixed-status families, Ratnam said, but research suggests it’s about 12% of the applicant pool. Commission staff are working with financial aid counselors at universities and high school college advisors to help students fill out the forms and stay patient with the process.
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