Despite the changing demographics of high-school graduates with an ever increasing number of low-income and first-generation students in the pipeline to higher education, the college admissions process has, for the most part, remained stuck in a previous era--when far fewer Americans went to college and the price of a degree was much less expensive. The result is a college search and financial-aid process that is often out of sync, overly complicated, and needlessly angst-ridden for students and parents. Unlike other major purchases in life, many families know little about what they will actually pay for college and, more important, exactly how they will finance it until a few weeks before a final decision needs to be made. Emotions have long steered students' college choices, and under time pressure, families sometimes make bad financial decisions. First-generation and low-income students, in particular, are often the most uneasy with the admissions process and typically lack the high-school counselors or the family know-how to navigate the myriad of paperwork and deadlines. Subsequently, they miss out on eligibility for financial aid, or worse, college altogether. Two key changes to federal policies that went into effect for the 2016-17 admissions cycle and streamlined financial-aid rules have already paid off and show the potential of further simplification. The first change is that families can now submit their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in October of their child's senior year of high school, three months earlier than in the past. Second, families can use tax data from the previous calendar year, rather than estimating their earnings in January for the year that just finished. This seemingly small tweak in the calendar produced somewhat dramatic results in the first year--most of all, reversing a decline in FAFSA filings nationwide. Extending the window to file the FAFSA by three months seems to have encouraged more high-school seniors to submit the form.