President Barack Obama announced positive revisions to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form on Sept. 14 at a town hall meeting in Iowa.

Students who have already enrolled in college and have filed for aid know how difficult the application process can be. Not only is it time consuming, but the application can be hard to comprehend.

Starting in 2016, high school students pursuing college in 2017 will be able to file their FAFSA form in October instead of having to wait until January.

Hopefully, the change to the form will spare unnecessary stress for future college students.

When I was a high school student filing the FAFSA for the first time, I remember being overwhelmed and panicking over the deadline.

Obama also touched on making changes to the tax year that you may use on the form. Instead of having to use the previous year’s information, families will be able to use tax forms from the past two years. For example, students who are filing in 2016 and who will be going to college in 2017 will be able to use their parents’ tax forms from 2015.

This will eliminate having to estimate your family’s income and then going back to fix it once you have the tax information for the year. Instead of having to revisit the form to revise information, students should be able to complete the form in one sitting.

To me, this is a step in the right direction for college systems. According to the White House website, around 2 million students currently enrolled in college could have been eligible for the Pell Grant, but did not even bother applying. It also mentions that many do not even pursue college because they are unaware of the aid that exists.

As a college student who relies on aid to keep me at Shippensburg University, it kills me to think some people are not attending college solely because they think they cannot afford it.

“No young person in America should be priced out of an education,” Obama said, according to the Quad-City Times.

Obama has already made valuable changes in the years he has served as president. According to Cecil Daily, Obama and his administration have added a feature that lets those filing the form to retrieve tax information electronically instead of having to add it manually.

According to the Quad-City Times, Obama also said the form is “time-consuming and confusing” and forces students to “leave money on the table in a 21st century economy where education is the key to success.”

With a simpler form, getting aid to get you through college should be easier. If you are not filing for aid, I would suggest you start doing so. There are tons of options to help you pay for college and you should not feel alone in this process.

Obama is working on trying to make college more affordable for students. He has already doubled some scholarship awards and the Pell Grant. He has also tried to improve other aspects of paying for college, like interest rates on loans.

Applying for aid to go to college should not be a stressful thing to have to go through. I expect to see even more improvements to the FAFSA form, and even making college more affordable in the remainder of Obama’s presidency. 

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