This week, the Department of Education held its annual Federal Student Aid (FSA) training conference for financial aid administrators. The conference ends this afternoon, but the Department has shared updates on a number of interesting topics, including borrower defense to repayment (BDR) and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

NAICU has provided the most up-to-date information regarding the recent BDR notices that schools have been receiving during the past few months. In addition to the updated guidance the Department recently published, the FSA training conference has added a few more details that institutions should take note of:

BDR

• For the small number of schools with over 500 applications, the Department will reach out to individual institutions to explain how it will pace notifications.
• Barring unforeseen circumstances, the Department anticipates completing the initial notification to all schools by approximately April 2024.
• Substantial misrepresentations are the most common type of alleged misconduct.
• For substantial misrepresentations, the Department must have evidence that demonstrates that a borrower’s school made a substantial misrepresentation that the borrower reasonably relied on to their detriment.
• If institutions need help logging into the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) Web Portal and navigating to the Borrower Defense Case portal, contact the COD School Relations Center at CODSupport@ed.gov or 1-800-848-0978.
• For questions regarding a specific Borrower Defense Case, reach out to Borrower Defense Customer Support at 1-855-279-6207.

The Department also shared more details on its rollout of the new 2024-2025 FAFSA form. While there is still no firm date on when the form will be available, the Department has reiterated that it will continue updating its new tracking page with the latest information.

FAFSA

• The Department is going to have the new FAFSA form ready by December 31.
• Once students complete their FAFSA, they will see a confirmation page and receive an email confirming their submission.
• The confirmation page will include language about the delayed Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) and an explanation of what students should expect following FAFSA submission.
• ISIRs will not be sent to schools or states until the end of January.
• The Department expects this delayed timeline to shorten after January.

The Department also shared additional resources for institutions, such as the Financial Aid Toolkit, which contains information about upcoming training webinars from the Department on FAFSA changes.