College applicants won’t be able to update and correct their Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms until the first half of April, the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday.
This marks yet another delay in the fraught rollout of the revamped FAFSA, which aims to make the notoriously difficult form easier to complete by paring down the number of questions students and their families must answer. The department had previously said students would be able to make corrections to the form “later in March.”
The pushed-back timeline comes on the heels of another technical issue.
The Education Department announced last week the amount of aid students should receive was miscalculated for dependents with assets.
On Monday, the Education Department said this “vendor issue” resulted in miscalculations for under 10% of roughly 4 million FAFSA forms. The agency also said the issue has since been resolved and that it would start reprocessing the records affected by the glitch “after student corrections are made available.”
“Institutions and states should consider these updates as they consider aid application and commitment deadlines for students,” the department said. “We encourage states and institutions to take steps to make sure all students have equitable access to aid and the opportunity to fully consider aid packages when making enrollment decisions.”
The latest FAFSA delay gives some college hopefuls and their families even less time than normal to correct their forms and review their financial aid packages before the traditional student commitment deadline of May 1, although many institutions have pushed back that date. Colleges use FAFSA applicant information to compose their financial aid packages, while some states use this data to award grants.
The Education Department also said Monday that it is on track to finish processing 6 million FAFSA forms and transmit the resulting data to colleges, states and scholarship agencies by the end of March. As of Monday, the Education Department finished processing 4.4 million FAFSA forms, according to a tracker it debuted this week.
More recently, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urged governors to adjust the deadlines for their states’ financial aid programs so students have more time to complete and correct their FAFSA forms. Cardona also asked governors to encourage their colleges to extend their financial aid deadlines.
Earlier this week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation pushing back the state’s financial aid deadline to May 2, giving students an additional month to submit their FAFSA forms. Other states, including Maryland and Tennessee, have implemented similar extensions.
Natalie Schwartz
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