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Diving overview:
- U.S. Department of Education Automatically reprocess Widespread tax data calculation errors account for approximately 15 to 20 percent of federal financial aid applications submitted to date.
- The announcement overturns the department's original plan to reprocess only the Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms that contained errors. Reduce the amount of aid students can receive.
- Earlier this week, the Department for Education said it would reprocess forms approving too much aid to students if requested by universities. The change in plans stemmed from feedback from the university and stakeholders, an agency spokeswoman said Friday.
Dive Insights:
The new FAFSA simplifies the financial aid process for students and their families, reducing the maximum number of questions from more than 100 to a few dozen. But the Department for Education published the updated forms three months later than usual, and the rollout has been riddled with errors and glitches ever since.
The shortened deadline and additional delays have had a ripple effect because colleges and states often rely on FAFSA data when awarding aid. As a result, students had less time to compare financial aid offers and decide where to attend. Many universities have postponed the opening of classes. Commitment and Financial Aid Deadlines We will work to help resolve this issue in the 2024-25 school year.
The Department of Education said more than 6.9 million FAFSA forms have been submitted as of Friday. It didn't provide exact figures, but it said less than 20% of “previously submitted” forms would require reprocessing.
The Department of Education will begin automatically reprocessing applications affected by the latest error in the first half of April.
“We recognize how important it is for schools to have the information they need to provide support to their students, which is why we are reprocessing all affected records at the school’s request,” a Department for Education spokesperson said Friday.
To expedite the financial aid process, colleges and universities may use original or reprocessed student records (known as Institutional Student Information Records, ISIR) to make offers. Richard CordrayHe is the Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid.
“We encourage schools that choose to begin providing packaging support as soon as possible using the original ISIR,” Cordray said in a statement Thursday.
announced by the department open source tools Colleges can determine which student financial aid records have been affected by tax errors.
In Thursday's announcement, the Department of Education also said it has resolved a final issue that prevented students whose parents did not have a Social Security number from submitting the FAFSA online. The problem is disproportionately Hurt Immigrant FamiliesThose students were forced to fill out the FAFSA using the updated document form.