Enrollment at Otterbein is up as much as 12%, despite glitches, delays and uncertainty in the new FAFSA, creating problems for students and universities across the country.
According to Jefferson Blackburn-Smith, executive vice president for strategic initiatives, Otterbein anticipated welcoming around 700 first-year students this semester, which is an increase of about 80 students compared to last year.
These numbers came prior to the fall semester census on Sept. 16, however, they bode well for enrollment, particularly as universities nationwide are experiencing varying degrees of impact from delays in the 2024 FAFSA.
According to a survey from the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), roughly 75% of 384 private institutions said FAFSA problems affected the makeup of incoming freshman classes. NAICU’s summary of findings also shows that 43% of institutions surveyed said this year’s freshman class is smaller than last year.
While Otterbein does not seem to be a part of this trend, ahead of the fall semester, some small, private universities, like Capital University and Ohio Dominican University, reported 12% and 15% declines in student enrollment respectively.
Blackburn-Smith says that there are different factors which have helped with Otterbein’s enrollment, including Otterbein’s proximity to Columbus, which gives students access to job and internship opportunities; initiatives from the Innovation Fund, such as the esports team and women’s wrestling; and Otterbein’s Coalition for the Common Good, which provides graduate pathways to undergraduates.
Discrepancies in enrollment may be explained by research suggesting that FAFSA completion is associated with an 84% increase in the likelihood of enrollment, and the fact that 14.4% fewer high school seniors (roughly 300,000 students) completed the FAFSA for 2024, compared to the previous year.
This drop in FAFSA completion is attributed to the bumpy rollout of the new FAFSA, which was intended to simplify the form and provide greater eligibility for financial aid.
However, students like Max Kirjak, a first-year communication major, said their FAFSA experience was difficult.
“It’s very confusing, like, they don’t tell you much...” Kirjak said. “There’s no paper that tells you exactly what you need to do, where you need to go; you get different information from different people.”
But not only did students experience difficulties with the updated form, the delivery of crucial student information was delayed multiple times, which subsequently affected schools’ ability to send out aid offers to prospective students.
Even though Otterbein seems to have performed better enrollment-wise in comparison to some schools, Blackburn-Smith also says that the FAFSA still played an important role.
“We know that the number of our admitted students who filed a FAFSA this year was significantly lower than a year ago...Now when you look at the students that enrolled, it’s almost exactly the same—about 96% this year and I think we were a little closer to 97% last year, but it was very very similar,” Blackburn-Smith said. “So clearly for students, getting the additional aid that may be available through the FAFSA, which is both access to federal student loans as well as Otterbein institutional need-based aid, makes a significant difference on whether or not students are going to be able to enroll.”
For Otterbein, aid offers typically go out in January, following the FAFSA’s release on Oct. 1. However, the 2024 FAFSA was not available until Dec. 31, 2023, putting the process three months behind from the start. A late correction to inflation further prevented schools from receiving student FAFSA information until late March.
The first award letters were finally sent out to admitted students in early April.
“As a financial aid office, we’re trying to serve multiple people in different stages of the process,” said Kirsten Crotte, senior director of enrollment operations and financial aid. “We do tend to start with admitted students because they’re still trying to determine where they are planning to come to college, so we want to try and get them that information as soon as possible so that they can see whether or not Otterbein is an affordable option for them.”
Although the new FAFSA was supposed to expand financial aid, such as Pell Grant eligibility, technical issues may have kept it from the students it intended to help most.
A report from the Century Foundation showed that there was a 20% greater drop in FAFSA completion in communities with a larger share of residents living in poverty, non-college adults, and Black or Latino residents, compared to communities with a low share of marginalized groups.
While Otterbein has sought to make attendance affordable for students from low-income backgrounds, especially through programs like the Opportunity Scholarship, such aid is not available without a FAFSA application.
“Some of the highest need families and students who are first gen or maybe don’t have the support at home to work through that process were probably some of the students that were hurt the most ... if you weren’t able to file, then there’s no aid available to you ...” Crotte said.
Crotte mentioned that FAFSA may have increased aid for those who were able to file, but the complications were counterproductive otherwise.
“If you make the process impossible for those people with the highest need, then you’re not really serving them very well,” Crotte said.
Although students and families were stressed by the FAFSA, so too were schools. NAICU’s survey found that 96% of institutions reported increased stress on staff and resources.
“There are processes that we need to be really efficient in our work that are not available, that are normally available right at the start of the cycle,” Crotte said. “So there’s still some real concerns in the financial aid community about getting those things straightened out so we can do our work better.”
The FAFSA process is still not perfect. Further, the Department of Education announced on Aug. 7 that the 2025-26 FAFSA will be delayed until Dec. 1 for testing.
However, in spite of the disruptions in this year’s FAFSA, Blackburn-Smith did see a silver lining.
“Because the process was delayed so long, students and families really had to take more time and look at who we were as a community [and] look at the strength of the academic programs when they didn’t have a price tag to look at and start arranging their schools by price. They did what we really hope people will do and started looking at them by fit ...” Blackburn-Smith said. “We were seeing students’ deposits well before they had financial aid awards and [we] were up in deposits the entire year, so we think that it changed the decision factor and timing in a way that may have been very beneficial to Otterbein.”
