FAFSA Continues to Lurch Forward

During the past week, the Department of Education has completed initial processing on 4.4 million Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), up from 1.5 million the previous week. The public can now monitor the Department’s progress through a new FAFSA Status Tracker in its online Knowledge Center. In total, 6.3 million applications have been submitted as of earlier this week.

But even as processing ramps up, problems continue. Last week’s biggest news was that there was a second glitch in the calculation of dependent student assets, causing new problems for any institutional student information record for dependent students with assets that was received before March 21, affecting an estimated 200,000-400,000 records.

Even worse, the period for corrections is unclear. While it was announced that students will be able to update and provide corrections to their FAFSAs in the first half of April, it is unclear when institutions will receive the reprocessed forms.

Meanwhile, Secretary Cardona sent a letter to governors advising them on steps they could take to ensure state aid is not affected by FAFSA delays, including extending application dates for state grant programs and ensuring there is enough grant aid at the state level to deal with the backlog. These steps would involve legislative action in many states—adding additional political and funding complexities to the botched federal roll out.

For more information, please contact:
Sarah Flanagan