On Oct. 6, Emma Do will be flying over 8,000 miles home to Vietnam after having to say a premature goodbye to their beloved Tufts community.
Do, who uses she and they pronouns, planned on majoring in environmental studies and Spanish. She was born in the United States and carries both Vietnamese and American passports, and was therefore able to qualify for American aid.
When Do was accepted to the Class of 2027, they were not initially granted any financial aid. They appealed that decision, however, and sent the financial aid office more documents and a letter explaining that her parents also had to support her four grandparents, who live in their house, as well as her sister’s American college education. Do’s appeal was successful and they ended up receiving $26,600 in aid from Tufts for their freshman year.
This aid package allowed Do to attend Tufts, the cost of which (including all fees such as housing, meals and books) is now $92,167 per academic year. But on July 9 of this past summer — seven weeks before the start of classes — Do received word from Tufts that she would not be receiving any need-based financial aid for the 2024–25 academic year. They filed an appeal, and another wait began.
Do was not the only student to face delays in financial aid decisions this fall. In a year when the Free Application for Federal Student Aid stumbled in an effort to make major changes, students and financial aid administrators were left scrambling. Those impacted included not only students waiting to hear what their first-time FAFSA aid would be, but also those like Do, a returning student waiting to hear results of a financial aid appeal.
For Do, the delayed news was worse than they ever could have imagined.
“To go from $26,000 to no aid at all was … a big shock,” Do said. Her appeal, which she submitted on July 18, included not only resubmitting all of their family’s financial documents, but also writing a new letter.
Do described the gist of the letter, explaining that their family's financial situation had not changed significantly and, if anything, it had only worsened due to an increase in her sister's tuition.
As a member of Spirit of the Creative, Do was set to perform with the dance group in a production of “Footloose The Musical” on Sept. 1. Their move-in was therefore scheduled for Aug. 26.
Do waited anxiously to hear back from the financial aid office and eventually sent a follow-up on Aug. 15, inquiring about the status of their appeal. Still hearing nothing, but knowing that they were successful the previous year, Do ultimately decided to return to Tufts as planned on Aug. 26.
The next day, on Aug. 27, after fully moving in, Do received an email saying the financial aid office was rejecting her appeal.
In their response, Do requested an appointment with a financial aid counselor, noting again that their family’s financial situation had not drastically changed and added that without financial support, they may have to consider transferring.
“I had an aid package, and now I have none. It’s not like I have a decreased aid package. … So it’s a big change and my family would have to go from paying $60K a year to like $93K a year,” Do said. “That was too much for my family.”
Do was able to meet with a financial aid counselor during a virtual open hours session. During the meeting, Do said that the financial aid representative told her it seemed clear that her family’s financial situation had not drastically changed but that Do would still be ineligible for aid this year.
When Do asked why, then, they couldn’t receive aid this year, they claimed that the counselor told them that they were never supposed to receive aid last year — that the financial aid office had made a mistake in granting them aid.
Do was shocked and confused by this news. “They never told me it was a mistake. … It wasn’t even in the decision letter this year. I had to pry it out of them in office hours that I set up,” she said.
The Daily reached out to Meaghan Hardy Smith, the director of financial aid at Tufts, to confirm whether Do’s aid had been granted in error last year. “Due to confidentiality requirements, we are unable to comment on individual students’ financial aid situations,” Hardy Smith wrote in a statement.
“I just felt really betrayed. I love the community so much, but I don’t feel like I’m wanted … by the school itself,” Do said. “I had to figure out what to do — logistics of everything. Everything felt rushed.” they added. “And I think that’s what made it so shocking.”
Hardy Smith attributed delays with financial aid packages to issues with the federal government’s new financial aid process. “Problems with the federal government’s rollout of a new platform and process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid caused significant confusion and uncertainty for families and numerous delays in the financial aid award and appeals processes for colleges and universities throughout the country,” she wrote.
On July 30 of this past summer, the Department of Education announced that a critical processing mechanism for student FAFSA records would not be available to schools for the 2024–25 year. In an online statement, Beth Maglione, the interim president & CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators said that “the Department’s poor planning has led to a stunning failure.”
This mechanism, called batch processing, allows schools to turn in large numbers (between hundreds and thousands) of corrections for student FAFSA records which must be submitted in order for financial aid offers to be granted.
Maglione elaborated on the fallout of this. “Some college students might not have financial aid dollars in their hands in time to start classes in the next few weeks. And for schools, the impact of today's announcement means more than a few extra hours of work. It’s the difference between pushing a button versus making thousands of keystrokes in terms of administrative burden,” she wrote.
“Tufts was not immune to these challenges,” Hardy Smith said in her statement. “The FAFSA rollout and its many problems not only delayed our issuance of awards this year but also pushed back the start of our appeals process and lengthened the time needed to assess each appeal.”
After two months of extensive back-and-forth with the financial aid office throughout the summer, Do and her family had to come to a tough decision. “We ultimately decided that I would take a gap year from Tufts,” they said. “And while I’m doing so, I’m going to apply to transfer to other schools.”
Do realized that after requesting their leave of absence from Tufts, they would be asked to move out of their dorm. But they encountered a major obstacle — Do had lost both their Vietnamese and American passports during the move-in process and had no way to immediately leave the country. Her new passports were not set to arrive for weeks.
With that in mind, in an email sent to their advising dean on Sept. 2, Do requested that she be able to remain in their dorm. Do’s advising dean copied the Office of Residential Life & Learning on the email, and, on Sept. 3, a representative responded, saying that Do had to move out of their dorm by 12 p.m. on Sept. 6.
After her rushed move-out process, Do was able to store her stuff with a senior friend from SOC who has an off-campus house. “Without my friends in SOC, I would actually have nowhere to go,” Do said.
Hardy Smith noted that in the future, the financial aid office should be better suited to deal with difficulties stemming from FAFSA.
“Students and their families should rest assured that we are monitoring the situation and working diligently to ensure that, as we move forward, awards and appeals are processed as soon as possible,” she wrote. “To assist with this goal, we have added a new position to enhance our ability to address FAFSA matters and better support students and families.”
Although these recent changes are targeted at improving the future of the financial aid process, this is no comfort to students like Do, who has been forced to leave the school they loved and the Tufts community that embraced them.
“For me,” she said, “Tufts has been everything.”
