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Colleges won't commencement receiving students' fiscal assistance information from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known arsenic the FAFSA, until the archetypal fractional of March - much than a period aboriginal than expected.
The delay, announced by the Department of Education past week, is apt to frustrate students who are waiting to perceive however overmuch they volition person from colleges earlier making a determination astir wherever to enroll successful the 2024-25 world year.
Typically, students person fiscal assistance grant letters from schools successful March and are expected to perpetrate to a assemblage by May 1. But present that timeline is successful jeopardy.
RELATED: New FAFSA is out. Here's what you request to cognize to get fiscal assistance for college
The Department of Education precocious made large changes to simplify the FAFSA, arsenic required by Congress. The updated signifier was released connected December 30 and was expected to marque much students eligible for aid, but the rollout has been bumpy.
Last week, the Department of Education said it would marque a last-minute hole to necktie the caller fiscal assistance calculation to the latest ostentation data.
The accommodation volition marque $1.8 cardinal much successful fiscal assistance disposable to students. But it's 1 of the factors contributing to the processing delay, a elder Education Department authoritative said connected a telephone with reporters Tuesday.
"I privation to stress that this is not conscionable a caller form. It's an wholly caller formula, process and bundle - not conscionable connected our part, but connected the portion of schools arsenic well. These are truly unprecedented changes," the authoritative said.
The department's Federal Student Aid bureau is charged with not lone administering the FAFSA, but has besides overseen the restart of national pupil indebtedness payments aft a yearslong, pandemic-related pause. In 2022, the Biden medication requested further backing to grip the bigger workload, but Congress near its fund the aforesaid arsenic the twelvemonth before.
With the caller FAFSA information hold announced Tuesday, colleges volition person little clip than accustomed to make fiscal assistance awards oregon volition person to propulsion backmost their acceptance deadlines.
"With this last-minute news, our nation's colleges are erstwhile again near scrambling arsenic they find however champion to enactment wrong these caller timelines to contented assistance offers arsenic soon arsenic imaginable - truthful the students who tin slightest spend higher acquisition aren't the ones who yet wage the terms for these missteps," Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said successful a connection Tuesday.
What is the FAFSA and however has it changed?
The FAFSA determines eligibility for national Pell Grants and national pupil loans - and successful astir cases, the fiscal assistance provided by colleges arsenic well.
The signifier has agelong been owed for an update, and the caller mentation released astatine the extremity of past twelvemonth is simply a culmination of changes approved by Congress successful 2019 and 2020.
In erstwhile years, the FAFSA could beryllium arsenic agelong arsenic 108 questions. With the caller form, immoderate applicants volition person to reply arsenic fewer arsenic 18 questions, which would instrumentality little than 10 minutes to complete, according to the Department of Education. Some accusation is present straight taken from a filer's taxation instrumentality truthful that the applicant doesn't person to hunt down numbers connected aged taxation returns.
With the caller FAFSA, an accrued fig of families is expected to beryllium eligible for fiscal aid.
In fact, the Department of Education estimates that 610,000 much students volition suffice for a Pell assistance connected an yearly basis. The Pell assistance programme is simply a cardinal mode the national authorities helps students from low-income families spell to assemblage by providing eligible students with wealth they don't person to wage back.
And an estimated 1.5 cardinal much students volition beryllium eligible for the maximum Pell assistance amount, which typically changes each year. The Pell assistance is worthy up to $7,395 during the existent schoolhouse year.
Problems and delays
Usually, the FAFSA is disposable for families and students connected October 1 each year, but the overhaul of the signifier had already pushed backmost the merchandise day by astir 3 months.
The Department of Education was required to merchandise the caller mentation by the extremity of 2023, and portion it met that deadline, the signifier was lone disposable sporadically, for astir 30 minutes astatine a time, for the archetypal 2 days. It was not made disposable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until January 8.
So far, much than 3.1 cardinal FAFSA forms person been successfully submitted, the Department of Education said Tuesday.
But students and families person experienced a fig of glitches with the caller form. Parents who don't person Social Security numbers, for example, are presently having problems starting a signifier for a pupil oregon contributing to 1 their kid already started - adjacent though they should beryllium allowed to make an relationship with Federal Student Aid and entree the form.
Last week, a radical of Republican lawmakers sent a missive to the Government Accountability Office asking for an probe into the Department of Education's handling of the FAFSA rollout.
"Repeated delays from the Department of Education ... successful rolling retired the caller FAFSA person near students and schools successful limbo for the upcoming schoolhouse year," wrote the lawmakers.
On Tuesday, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking subordinate of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, called the FAFSA rollout a "disaster."
"These unacceptable delays from the Biden medication creates the existent likelihood that galore students volition forgo assemblage due to the fact that they cannot take a schoolhouse without knowing their eligibility for pupil aid," Cassidy said successful a statement.
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