"... College-access advocates hope a new mobile student aid app launched by the Education Department this week will remove one barrier to financial aid by allowing applicants to access the FAFSA on their smartphone," Inside Higher Ed reports.

"'Students live on their phones, as we all know,' said Sujuan Boutté, executive director of the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance.

Student aid professionals say the biggest measure of the app’s impact will be whether it leads to an increase in the FAFSA completion rate. But they’re also balancing excitement about the app with realism over the challenges still facing many students most in need of federal aid.

... Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said the mobile app is best viewed as one of several steps the Education Department has taken in recent years to incrementally improve the application process.

Earlier, it helped create the IRS data retrieval tool, which allows applicants to automatically import family tax data into their FAFSA application. And in 2016, it moved the beginning of the federal financial aid cycle up two months so that students could start the process earlier in the year.

'I think we’ve made a lot of progress on the FAFSA over the last decade,' Draeger said. 'This is just another step in the right direction and I totally applaud them for that.'"

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Publication Date: 10/4/2018