Bill to Temporarily Extend FAFSA Deadline By Another Month Passed By Senate

A bill to extend the 2024-2025 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) deadline was approved by the Senate on Thursday. Extending the deadline by one month from April 2nd to May 2nd will allow families more time to apply for the Cal Grant program and Middle Class Scholarship college grant programs.

Most years, FAFSA forms are due by early March for students applying for the 2024-2025 school year. However, this year, there has been a nationwide problem when students apply for FAFSA related student aid. With updates to forms to make them easier to fill out, and to expand the number of students getting federal and state aid, students with undocumented parents have had a difficult time accessing FAFSA. This is because the parental income amount, a requirement for all FAFSA forms, does not accept those from illegal immigrants. Specifically it affects parents without social security numbers.

While the problem was somewhat fixed last week with California extending a temporary deadline, education experts said that it did not allot enough time for many to enroll in time.

“Whatever your thoughts on illegal immigrants are, their children are U.S. citizens and they have a right to FAFSA. That’s how it is. This DOE glitch only started this year,” explained education document advisor Lexi Martinez told the Globe on Friday. “And it especially hurt many in California. Without student aid, a lot of people can’t go to college. Everyone deserves a fair shot. And now a lot of families, with the April 2nd deadline, they have to scramble to get it all in. And these are big. Cal Grants, for most students, give $6,000 on top of paying for a big chunk of tuition and fees. The Middle Class one is even more potentially. And this glitch almost locked out a lot of otherwise eligible students.”

To give students another month, Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside) authored Assembly Bill 1887, the sole purpose which is to extend another temporary deadline to apply from April 2nd to May 2nd. Marked as an emergency bill, AB 1187 started off in Assembly committees on Monday, was passed by the Assembly later that day, went through Senate committees the next two days, and on Thursday, was passed by the Senate 37-0.

“Assembly Bill 1887 was approved by the Senate and is headed to the Governor’s Desk!” Cervantes tweeted on X. “If the Governor signs the bill into law, the application deadline for state financial aid programs will be immediately extended to May 2. This will allow our students to have more time to complete the FAFSA. The bill will hopefully allow the federal government to have more time to fix the ongoing problem preventing students with parents who are undocumented from completing the FAFSA.”

🎉Assembly Bill 1887 was approved by the Senate and is headed to the Governor’s Desk! If the Governor signs the bill into law, the application deadline for state financial aid programs will be immediately extended to May 2. #DeliveringResults #AD58 1/x pic.twitter.com/9daA8B7n8y

— Sabrina Cervantes (@AsmCervantes) March 21, 2024

Sources at the State Capitol told the Globe on Friday that Newsom was likely to sign the bill soon.

“Yeah, this is a bipartisan bill that affects both sides,” said Dana, a Capitol staffer on Friday. “This is one of those bills that needs to be passed quickly to fix a mounting issue, and they did so in only a matter of days. Besides the students all being eligible to apply and it just being delayed due to a glitch, both sides also wanted to appeal to Latino voters, especially with an election coming up. They’re still a major force for Democrats in the state, but as we’ve seen in the past few elections and the primary this year, the GOP has been getting more and more within their numbers.”

“This was just another formality bill. Federal government messed up and the state has to scramble so no one falls behind.”

AB 1887 is expected to be signed by Governor Newsom soon.