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The FAFSA saga won't be over but.
Quick for the Free Software for Federal Scholar Support, the FAFSA for the 2024-2025 educational yr experienced a number of unprecedented delays, forcing dozens of schools to push again enrollment-decision deadlines and a few college students who rely upon monetary assist to place their faculty plans on maintain.
Now, 25 monetary assist and higher-education organizations are sounding the alarm to keep away from a repeat. In a letter despatched to the U.S. Division of Schooling on Monday, the teams warned that the discharge of the FAFSA for 2025-2026 might be postponed because of this yr’s technical and administrative points.
“We are concerned that the FAFSA will be delayed again,” the organizations wrote, “and that the release date will remain uncertain until just before the form becomes available.”
The letter underscores that the Schooling Division is already behind on releasing a draft of the upcoming FAFSA for public remark. Normally, the draft is launched in February and the ultimate type is publicly out there on Oct. 1 for the next yr.
The Schooling Division says it is nonetheless getting ready for an October launch, although advocates are doubtful. With lower than 4 months to go and no draft in hand, the organizations urged Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona and the division to raised talk the FAFSA timeline, writing that “transparency for next year will be critical.”
What’s (nonetheless) happening with the FAFSA?
The FAFSA, typically lamented as troublesome and time-consuming, just lately underwent a drastic simplification mandated by the FAFSA Simplification Act, a legislation tucked right into a sprawling pandemic-era stimulus bundle signed by former President Donald Trump in 2020.
For the 2024-2025 type, the FAFSA shrunk from over 100 inquiries to lower than 40. Along with modifications on the shape itself, the Schooling Division altered the methodology it makes use of to find out monetary help, which it says resulted in about 650,000 new students becoming eligible for aid.
Tens of millions of fogeys, college students and faculty employees know what occurred subsequent: The rollout of the simplified type was riddled with delays, errors and technical glitches. Sometimes launched on Oct. 1 of the earlier yr, the 2024-2025 FAFSA didn't formally launch till Jan. 8, 2024 — three months not on time.
That set off a sequence response of issues for households, the federal government and faculty directors. A number of technical glitches with the brand new type in addition to behind-the-scenes points with the help system spurred additional delays. Faculties didn’t begin receiving college students’ monetary assist info till March, with many college students not receiving their award letters till weeks later. This bumped up towards, and in some instances pushed again, the normal Might 1 college-decision deadline.
Within the meantime, the Schooling Division was alleged to have been gearing up for the discharge of the 2025-2026 FAFSA. Now that it is 4 months behind on releasing the draft of the upcoming FAFSA, increased training specialists and directors are getting a way of déjà vu.
FAFSA delays have main results for households and faculties. Every year, about 20 million college students fill out the shape in hopes of acquiring grants, scholarships or loans to assist them afford faculty. Usually, potential college students can’t decide to enrolling at a selected faculty until they know the way a lot it's going to value them.
Based on the letter from increased ed advocates, FAFSA functions this yr are down 13.5% as a result of botched rollout.
“This drop is twice the magnitude of the FAFSA completion decline that occurred during the pandemic, which portended a 7.4% drop in college enrollment,” they mentioned.
Aiming to keep away from one other 'absolute catastrophe'
School directors are crossing their fingers that the Schooling Division will be capable to put out the 2025-2026 FAFSA on time in October regardless of the present delay with the draft model of the shape.
When Cash requested the Schooling Division to touch upon the letter and the FAFSA timeline, the company mentioned in an emailed assertion: "We've got heard from college students, households, establishments, states, and people who assist them that it's most essential for the 25-26 FAFSA type to launch in October. According to the Secretary’s statements, the Division is working in direction of that objective.”
Beforehand, the division pinned the blame for the delays on Congress, stating that lawmakers declined its request for a $600 million funds enhance to assist the company implement the drastic modifications to the FAFSA, amongst a number of different initiatives together with the implementation of a new income-driven repayment plan called SAVE and growing new student-loan servicer contracts.
"We're definitely working underneath very substantial workload calls for created by Congress and with out extra sources," an Schooling Division official told reporters earlier this yr.
For the 2025 fiscal yr (beginning on Oct. 1 for the federal authorities) the Schooling Division requested an extra $625 million for the workplace that oversees the FAFSA.
It’s not clear whether or not — or when — Congress will grant that request. Lawmakers are far not on time themselves. Sometimes handed earlier than the fiscal yr begins, this yr’s federal funds didn't get accepted till March, 5 months later than traditional, narrowly avoiding a authorities shutdown.
In a current Home funds listening to, Republican lawmakers expressed concern concerning the Schooling Division's request for extra funding.
“The new FAFSA has been an absolute disaster,” mentioned Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., noting that the division already has about 1,400 full-time staff working within the workplace that oversees the FAFSA. She pressed Cardona, the training secretary, about allocating too many staff to pupil mortgage forgiveness efforts and never sufficient to fixing the FAFSA.
“There’s nothing more important right now at the Department of Education [than the FAFSA],” Cardona responded. “We're working on this around the clock.”
Following the botched FAFSA rollout, Richard Cordray, who oversees the division’s Federal Scholar Support division, introduced he would step down. He's anticipated to remain on via the tip of June. The Schooling Division has not but introduced his substitute.
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