While I agree it might be well intentioned, I expect the education and implementation probably won’t go well, and will leave significant knowledge gaps for families, and result in poorly targeted applications.
-Counselors tend to not be great resources for filling out FAFSA…who will help families understand what FAFSA is for, and how to fill it out? For many of us on CC FAFSA is straightforward, but many people aren’t financially literate and/or are skeptical of providing financial info to the government.
-Filling out FAFSA and knowing an EFC is but a small piece of understanding financial aid…again counselors not only tend to not know much about FA, some schools have a policy that counselors don’t get involved with FA.
-As we know…most schools don’t meet need, there are many students with low EFCs who apply to DePaul and Loyola (for Illinois examples), and receive a financial aid package which leaves $25K to pay. Invariably, some of these people applied to these schools thinking they will pay what their EFC says and/or will be ‘waiting’ for their money from FAFSA.
I hope I’m wrong and there will be adequate resources to educate families, but, since I live in Illinois, I better not hold my breath.