The current application for federal student aid is six pages long, with more than 100 questions.

The U.S. Department of Education has proposed legislation that would reduce that to two pages and 27 questions.

Sara Martinez Tucker, the U.S. under secretary of education, introduced the department’s plans to Congress in the middle of November.

“The desire to simplify that process would be very, very helpful,” President Bill Perry said.

Perry said the process of filling out the forms for financial aid and understanding all the different kinds of financial aid available is a complex arena.

Jone Zieren, director of the Office of Financial Aid, said the more than 100 questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid takes about one hour to complete.

Although, Zieren said if parents or students complete the online worksheet using their federal tax returns, the process is not complicated.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) collects the necessary data to determine a student’s eligibility for participation in federal student assistance programs such as the Federal Pell Grant Program, Federal Direct Loan Program, and Federal Work Study and the Federal Perkins Loan, she said.

Some changes have already been made to the form for the 2009-10 year.

Zieren said these changes would affect any student who applies for federal financial aid in the 09-10 school year.

“They have added five additional dependency questions which should reduce the number of dependency overrides our office performs each year based on special circumstances,” Zieren said. “Proof will be requested and verified by our office.”

These changes also include an increase of the maximum family income to qualify for an automatic zero contribution from $20,000 to $30,000, she said.

“There are more exclusions for untaxed income which will reduce the family contribution or ability to pay for lower income families,” Zieren said.

Untaxed income that will be excluded in the new form, Zieren said, include earned income credit, child tax credit, welfare payments, untaxed Social Security benefits, Workforce Investment Act educational benefits, benefits from flexible spending arrangements, foreign income exclusion or credit for federal tax on special fuels.

The recent proposal for a simplified financial aid process suggests a change where the government would determine the amount of federal aid an individual student would receive.

In this process, the government would calculate the maximum amount of federal grant and subsidized loan funds that the neediest student could receive and would recommend that to be the amount of the average cost of attendance at two-year public colleges.

Then the government would calculate the amount an individual student would be qualified for based on their adjusted gross income and tax exemptions.

The amount of aid to the student would then be based on the adjusted gross income as compared to poverty income levels.

Under the proposal, the amount of need-based grant, loan and work-study aid the student warranted would be based on how their adjusted gross income compared to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ poverty income levels.

“Anything that will help with the ease of the application process is beneficial to the student,” Zieren said.

Perry said until the exact details in the plan of simplification is known, it is hard to say what the impact would be on our students.

“As with any kind of change in a system, that on the face of it could look good by simplifying, there are details that have to be analyzed, fleshed out so that we can know what the impact would be on our students,” Perry said. “We want it to be an advantage for our students.”

Emily Zulz can be reached at 581-7942 or at eazulz@eiu.edu.