Share this: A class officer with a list of extracurricular accomplishments and honors courses, Aya Hamza — like other applicants from low-income families — nonetheless struggled to navigate the pandemic-year college admissions process. Credit: Aya Hamza The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox. Aya Hamza’s academic and extracurricular record at Coral Gables Senior High School near Miami should have made her path to college relatively effortless. Instead, the process brought her to tears. The crying came when the 17-year-old was trying to make sense, on her own, of the complex form required to apply for the financial aid she needed as the first in her low-income family to go to college.