El Paso Matters – El Paso families turn to FAFSA info sessions for help with 2026-27 financial aid

Veronica Flores’ son expects to graduate from Coronado High School in June. He has completed his portion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, but she needed help to complete hers. She got it at a recent FAFSA Informational Session.

Flores, a divorced, single mom who lives and works in Ciudad Juárez, got the necessary one-on-one assistance to address questions about the application. As a result, she completed the “contributor” component and submitted it within 20 minutes. Contributors are the students, their spouses or parents (biological, adoptive or stepparents) who provide their tax information on the application.

If accepted, her son becomes eligible for college grants, work-study funds and federal student loans. According to the College Board Trends in Student Aid report, the total amount of grant aid that undergraduates and graduate students received during the 2024-25 academic year was almost $174 billion. The FAFSA also would give him access to state and institutional grants.

Flores was among the 50 or so families that participated in the four-hour session that started at 9 a.m. Nov. 15 in the Socorro Independent School District Service Center, 12440 Rojas Drive. It was organized by financial aid representatives from Texas Tech Health El Paso, El Paso Community College and the University of Texas at El Paso. 

“I needed help from square one,” said Flores, who attended the session by herself. “I think anyone who doesn’t know how (FAFSA) works should take advantage of these information sessions. (The UTEP representatives) were helpful. They explained everything.”

Additional FAFSA Informational Sessions, which include English and Spanish presentations about the costs of college and financial aid options, are scheduled through December.  

The FAFSA for the 2026-27 academic year launched Sept. 24, a full week before the usual Oct. 1 start date, and months before the application was released the previous two years due mostly to technical glitches. This version is for students who will attend college or a career school from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.

El Paso FAFSA event organizers estimated that the sessions have attracted 50 to 100 families to each where topics ranged from financing higher education to how to help students ease into the college experience. 

As for the local application process, financial aid advisers said things were going well.

The same can be said nationally. In fact, an official with the National College Attainment Network said that the early FAFSA release and the improvements to the document could mean an all-time high in application completion by high school seniors.

Bill DeBaun, senior director for Data and Strategic Initiatives at NCAN, said the usual peak FAFSA response by June 30 for high school seniors is 54%. He believes that the Class of 2026 could reach 57%. That translates to about 2.5 million graduates completing their FAFSA. As of this past July, the FAFSA Tracker stated that Texas’ completion rate for the Class of 2025 was 64.6%, which ranked fourth in the country after Tennessee, New Jersey and Illinois.

The improvements include the almost instantaneous Federal Student Aid ID creation process. The identification is a username or password that students and contributors need to access and sign their FSA information. Previous versions forced applicants to wait a few days for an FSA ID. Overall, this year’s process has been faster and more efficient.

One of the more problematic topics has been how to advise mixed-status families, which are households where members have different immigration or citizenship statuses. Many families and advocates are concerned that private information shared on the FAFSA could be used to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DeBaun said the Higher Education Act prohibits the use of FAFSA data for anything other than the determining and awarding of federal financial aid, but he added that NCAN cannot assure those families that the data they submit in their FAFSA will remain protected. NCAN suggests counselors advise contributors without a Social Security number about the risks and benefits of submitting their information. The group released a paper last month to guide families in that situation.

“It is a very sensitive topic,” he said. “There are a lot of ramifications here.”

Marcia Carmona, assistant director of student engagement in UTEP’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, said that she has worked with mixed-status families and stressed to them that the student needs to be a citizen; the contributor does not. It does not matter if the contributor lives in Mexico or does not have a Social Security number.  

Carmona, who has helped students with their FAFSAs for 23 years, said she is thankful that so many families attend the information sessions to get a more holistic picture of financial aid options to include grants or scholarships from employers or the military.

“Some people come (to information sessions) to get started. Others come because they are stuck. Some have no clue,” Carmona said after the initial rush had cleared out. She estimated that she has helped prepare more than 11,000 FAFSAs. “We help all of them get through the process.”

The financial aid director said that the early launch of the 2026-27 FAFSA “jump started” opportunities for students and their families to submit their application, which could end up at as many as 20 institutions each.

Those colleges and universities will develop financial aid packages for the students based on the FAFSA information. Those award offers could go out as soon as early December. Students can factor those packages as they weigh their college options.

Nivia Uribe, an Americas High School student who expects to graduate in June, said she was not sure which college to attend, but she wanted to study sonography. The 17-year-old Eastsider admitted to being nervous at the information session because it was her first time trying to fill out the FAFSA.

“It wasn’t as hard as I expected,” said Uribe, who needed some help to complete her FAFSA. She and her godmother, Daisy Fuentes, were the fifth family in line when the doors opened.

Atianna Dungy and her mother, Josie Dungy, were among the late arrivals, but it was because they had a different agenda. Atianna, a senior in Eastlake High School’s early college program, and her mother, already had submitted their FAFSA.

The two came to learn about other financial opportunities to pay for college, and the steps Atianna, 17, would need to pursue a nursing degree at UTEP. One of the options was the Paydirt Promise, which covers tuition and fees of eligible Texas residents whose family income is $100,000 or less.

“We needed to find out what else was out there,” Josie Dungy said. “Things aren’t getting any cheaper.”

The federal government launched FAFSA in 1992. It was an amendment to the Higher Education Act to create a single, standardized application to streamline requests for needs-based federal financial aid. It replaced the Common Financial Aid Form.

Students and families that want to learn more about FAFSA can visit a revamped StudentAid.gov, which reportedly made it easier for users to find information, submit applications and receive confirmations. NCAN also prepared a single page resource guide to complete the FAFSA.

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