The process of applying to college can be expensive.

And now, some companies are illegally charging students and their families to help fill out their Free Application for Student Aid forms.

Last Friday two senior members of Congress, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), sent a letter to Secretary of Education Roderick Paige, urging him to look into the problem.

A law, which is part of the Higher Education Act, prohibits private companies from charging students and parents for help with the FAFSA form.

Families have a few reasons for going to one of these companies to ask for help.

‘Part of the problem is that many parents do it inadvertently,’ said Chris Walsh, dean of the Office of Financial Aid.

Walsh said that many people get confused when trying to fill the application out online. Instead of visiting fafsa.ed.gov, the free site, they visit fafsa.com, a site that he says deceives them. Fafsa.com charges anywhere from $49.99 to $189.99, according to the site.

‘What the pay sites do is guarantee that the process will be error-free,’ said Tom Kiley, press secretary for Miller.

Both Kiley and Walsh said, however, that the process for filling out the application is not extremely difficult.

‘For most families, it is not complicated,’ Walsh said. ‘Some families have more difficult financial situations, but it is still not necessary to hire help out.’

Kiley said that he filled the form out not long ago at fafsa.ed.gov for graduate school and had no trouble. He did admit, though, that the difficulty level would need to be examined.

‘I don’t think it’s that common for SU students to hire help because we are diligent in telling students what to do,’ Walsh said. ‘We help hundreds if not thousands of students each year with FAFSA, along with the Department of Education and the state of New York. There is a lot of help out there and it is all for free.’

By sending out the letter, both congressmen are trying to alert Paige about the fact that they feel this law has been overlooked.

‘This is a technical violation of the law,’ said Jim Manley, press secretary for Kennedy. ‘We are asking for what exactly the law calls for in this situation. We have very serious concerns.’

Since the letter was just recently sent, Paige hasn’t responded to the letter’s concerns, but the board is aware of the problem.

‘We have looked into fafsa.com before,’ said Stephanie Babyak, spokesperson for the Department of Education. ‘Fafsa.com has said that it provides students with other types of help, and that is why they charge.’

Already the Department of Education is trying to figure out what is legal and what is not. The department has made a link to its main page that gives some tell-tale signs that the company may be a scam, with phrases like ‘We’ll do all the work,’ or ‘The scholarship will cost some money.’

‘We have an ongoing effort to prevent fraud and we are alerting people that there is help for free too,’ Babyak said.

Published on January 26, 2004 at 12:00 pm