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New Year, New FAFSA
Changes in deadlines, calculations of aid and grant availability By Arly Garcia @DailyLobo The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has recently undergone several significant changes – the most since the introduction of the Common Financial Aid Form in the Reagan era, according to the U.S. Department of Education website. This redesign was created via the FAFSA Simplification Act and Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education (FUTURE) Act. Ria Shultz, the Assistant Director of the University of New Mexico Center for Financial Capability said these laws should make the FAFSA easier to access, leave users with fewer questions and provide better clarity on what information students need to provide.
“More people should be qualifying for financial aid that might not have been able to qualify in the past,” Schultz said. The FAFSA calculates student eligibility for grants, loans, scholarships and work-study opportunities. Grants are highly sought after because students are not required to repay them. The Federal Pell Grant is awarded based on financial need; the changes to qualify, Schultz said, are important to understand. This change is the result of replacing the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) with the Student Aid Index (SAI). The EFC was a precise amount that a student’s family would expect to pay, whereas the SAI functions more like a scale and is an “indicator of where your need stands,” Schultz said. In previous years, eligibility for financial aid was determined by the EFC, which factored in acade-
mic year, enrollment status and cost of attendance. For the 2024-25 FAFSA, eligibility will be determined by the SAI, which factors in academic year, enrollment status, cost of attendance, as well as family size and the Federal Poverty Level, based on the student and their contributors’ information. The inclusion of more factors and adjustment of formulas should make the Federal Pell Grant available to an additional 610,000 students, according to the Federal Student Aid website. FAFSA’s Simplification Fact Sheet defines a contributor as any person “who’s asked to provide their information, consent and approval to have their federal tax information transferred automatically from the IRS into the FAFSA form, and signature on your FAFSA form.” Dependent students have
always been required to provide parent information on their FAFSA, but the new definition of a contributor would also require
independent students to include information about their spouses, according to the Department of
The Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act was enacted in 2020. The proposed amendments would specifically allow law enforcement and health care professionals to report potentially harmful behavior and expedite the order-issuing process. Representatives Joy Garratt (D) and Christine Chandler (D) pre-filed House Bill 27, featuring the proposed amendments, Jan. 2. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham
included HB 27 in a list of legislative public safety priorities at a press conference on Jan. 12. “We know that this bill works – and by that, I mean it saves lives,” Chandler said at the press conference. “We know that because it allows law enforcement to retrieve weapons from individuals who may be a harm to themselves or others.” One amendment would require individuals to immediately
relinquish their firearms and, if they fail to, allow law enforcement officers to obtain a search warrant to do so. Currently, as written in the standing legislation, the ERFPO process begins when a reporting party – a family member, employer or school official – reports someone they know who is exhibiting threatening behavior to law enforcement. An officer can then petition the court to re-
quire the individual to relinquish their firearms to a law enforcement agency or Federal Firearm Licensee within 48 hours. This 48-hour period is one of the most significant problems with the act as it is now, Sheila Lewis said – New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence ERFPO Trainer who helped draft the language of HB 27. “Not only is the person expec-
Ella Daniel / Daily Lobo / @ella_daniel7
The FASFA application displayed on a computer screen on Jan. 7.
see FASFA page 3
Legislators propose amendments to New Mexico red flag law
By Lily Alexander @ llilyalexander
Two New Mexico legislators are proposing amendments to a state law that allows district courts to issue yearlong orders to prohibit individuals from possessing, purchasing or receiving firearms if they are found to pose a threat of injury to themselves or others.
see Red Flag page 5
‘They scrapped us’: The Trinity downwinders and New Mexico mine workers who remain unrecognized The world’s first downwinders keep up the fight, as more communities in the state punctured by uranium mines step forward By Danielle Prokop & Marisa Demarco
This story was originally published by Source New Mexico Those living nearest to the first nuclear blast in history have suffered for generations. In New Mexico, Trinity Test site neighbors weren’t warned or evacuated before the U.S. government detonated the atomic bomb in 1945. The light was so bright,
it could be seen hundreds of miles away. Nearly half a million people resided within a 150-mile radius of the blast. Witnesses said ash rained down for days. Cancers, diseases, early deaths, infant mortality and more have plagued people in New Mexico ever since the United States government set off the bomb in the Jornada del Muerto. But despite organizing and advocacy for well over a decade, they were neither recognized nor compensated. All of that could have finally
changed last year as Congress considered an expansion of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act with bipartisan support. New Mexico advocates said a victory after so many years of work never felt more possible. But during last-minute negotiations over defense spending, relief for people in New Mexico and potentially tens of thousands of others nationwide was unceremoniously nixed from the legislation. “I think it’s shockingly immoral that Congress believes the U.S. government can harm citizens and basically walk away from any responsibility,” said Tina Cordova, the founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.
No warnings, no evacuations, no information RECA was approved by Congress in 1990 as a form
of apology, according to the Department of Justice, and as a means of paying families exposed to radiation when uranium for nuclear weapons was mined and milled, or when those weapons were tested. But it wasn’t created without prompting, the DOJ acknowledges. It was Navajo uranium miners and people living downwind of the Nevada Test Site who spurred the creation of the RECA fund. They’d been fighting for their families and communities in courts after being exposed to so much radiation and suffering its effects — cancers, lung diseases and early deaths. Trinity downwinders were not covered by RECA. A 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report confirms: “New Mexico residents
were neither warned before the 1945 Trinity blast, informed of health hazards afterward, nor evacuated before, during, or after the test. Exposure rates in public areas from the world’s first nuclear explosion were measured at levels 10,000-times higher than currently allowed.” Declassified documents show that in the days immediately following the blast, Manhattan Project planners realized the fallout radius was much larger and more dangerous than they’d expected. Though some New Mexico downwinders developed cancers years or decades later, other impacts may have been more immediate. A Roswell health care provider wrote a letter to a safety official with the Manhat-
see Trinity page 2