Marin schools, families roiled by botched college financial aid rollout

Some students are resorting to making multiple tuition deposits, a tactic school administrators frown upon.

As Marin high school college counselors try to help families cope with the bungled rollout of a revamped federal financial aid program, some students are resorting to making multiple tuition deposits because they don’t know which school will offer the best financial aid package.

“What a challenging year for families nationwide with the problematic rollout of the new FAFSA,” Katie Paulsen, a counselor at Redwood High School, said of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

“I can empathize with students and parents who have worked so hard, only to be faced with difficult decisions in choosing one campus over another when lacking financial aid information,” Paulsen said.

The U.S. Department of Education decided to revamp the FAFSA for the first time in more than 40 years. But the agency rollout of the revamped forms was botched and delayed. As a result, some students have have had to make decisions about putting a deposit on a college without knowing if they could afford it. Others are trying to hedge their bets that one school will offer more aid than another.

Nonetheless, Marin school counselors are not condoning the practice.

“Although some of you are waiting for a final financial aid award before choosing your four-year school, please note that it is unethical to deposit at more than one college,” Lisa Neumaier, college and career specialist at Archie Williams High School, said in a letter to families.

“It is deceitful,” Neumaier added. “If you deposit at more than one school, you are taking a spot away from another applicant who might be on the waitlist and dreaming about the opportunity to attend that school.”

Paulsen said while Redwood has great empathy for the students and families, the high school will only send out transcripts to one college.

“Regardless of the burdensome position families have been placed in, double depositing takes an admission away from another student,” Paulsen said. “Families who are in the fortunate financial position to place multiple deposits down are taking away another student’s ability to be offered admission.”

Seydi Cifuentes, a college and career adviser at San Rafael High School, agreed.

“We do not condone that at SRHS,” Cifuentes said of double depositing. “We make it clear to our seniors that they shouldn’t accept their offer to more than one school.”

In addition to giving the students warnings, “we also ask them to log in to their student portals to deny the schools they won’t be attending to give their spot to someone else who wants it,” Cifuentes said.

“Putting down a deposit to multiple schools is unethical and is something most of our SRHS students can not afford to do,” Cifuentes said.

At the other end of the FAFSA bureaucratic nightmare, colleges and universities are in limbo about who — and who is not — attending in the fall.  Most schools didn’t begin receiving students’ financial aid information from the Department of Education until late March.

And additional errors in calculations meant hundreds of thousands of already-submitted forms would need to be reprocessed.

“Due to the FAFSA delays, many students are not submitting deposits until they can compare the financial aid packages being offered by their top schools,” said Sarah Gardner, a spokesperson at Dominican University of California in San Rafael.

“This is particularly true at a school like Dominican, which is dedicated to advancing social mobility,” Gardner added.

“About one-third of our students qualify for Pell grants, and about one-quarter of our undergraduates are first-generation students,” she said. “For many of these families, a $250 deposit is a significant expense, and they cannot afford to submit multiple deposits.”

Dominican has extended the May 1 deadline to May 30 “as we have only recently started to receive applicants’ federal aid information,” Gardner said. The college’s nursing school deadline was moved to May 15, and the transfer student deadline reset to Aug. 15, Gardner added.

Dominican’s financial aid and admissions offices have set up extended hours to facilitate “ongoing conversations with students,” Gardner said.

“They continue to message students via email, text,and phone to aid with FAFSA filing, which is at a historical low nationwide and even more so in California,” she said.

Other four-year schools, such as University of California and California State University campuses, have moved their tuition deposit deadlines from May 1 to May 15.

At College of Marin, admissions offices have set up extra hours for students to get questions answered about admissions and financial aid.

Once they are accepted for admission, College of Marin students may register for credit classes up until the day before classes start on Aug. 17 for Saturday classes and Aug. 20 for weekday classes.

Potential incoming students may call 415-457-8811, ext. 8822, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Friday phone service is available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

In general, Neumaier advised families to seek help from school counselors.

“Give yourself time to process your normal reactions, and then move beyond them and the what-ifs so you can focus on the opportunities you do have,” Neumaier said. “It may help to remind yourself that there is no perfect college.”

The Bay Area News Group contributed to this report.