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- Postponed batch corrections: The Department of Education will not provide a batch correction feature for the 2024-25 FAFSA cycle, which was originally promised for mid-August.
- Increased administrative burden: Grant officers will face a significant administrative burden as they will have to manually process corrections that should otherwise be processed in large quantities.
- Delays in the payment of aid: This results in delays for students in applying for financial aid, potentially leading to financial difficulties.
In addition to the myriad delays and issues with the FAFSA, the Department of Education announced today that the batch correction feature for FAFSA filings will be postponed until the 2025-26 cycle, creating further challenges for educational institutions and students.
This decision came after previously promising publication in August, leaving many institutions struggling to make grant corrections manually.
Since batch processing cannot be implemented, financial aid offices must process corrections one at a time, which significantly increases their workload. This move has drawn criticism from educational institutions that rely on batch processing to efficiently manage financial aid for their students.
A large college may need to make thousands of corrections for its students, which currently has to be done manually.
FAFSA Problems
The 2024-2025 FAFSA program is riddled with problems. It was originally scheduled to launch in October 2023, but was delayed several times and finally went live on December 28, 2023. But even after launch, the Department of Education was unable to process the FAFSA program and make it available to colleges. The result is that financial aid offices did not receive information until April and May 2024—right in the middle of college admissions season.
Now, colleges are still struggling to resolve FAFSA errors. These can occur for numerous reasons, including inaccurate FAFSA data, changes in household status and finances, and more. These now have to be manually processed one at a time, adding extra work during an already difficult college admissions season.
Beth Maglione, interim president and CEO of NASFAA, expressed her frustration and emphasized the federal government's commitment to ensuring students receive their financial aid on time. “Today's announcement is beyond frustrating,” she said. “The Department of Education failed to deliver a key FAFSA outcome as promised.”
Notes for next year
A key aspect of the notice was that the batch correction feature will be delayed until next year's FAFSA. The Department of Education said, “We value the development of a well-tested, robust, and consistent launch of the 2025-26 form and need to ensure that development resources are deployed accordingly.”
While the focus must be on ensuring a successful FAFSA launch in 2025-2026, there are still students and families (as well as colleges) who need support this year.
Despite the Ministry's offer of technical support, many institutions are struggling with long wait times to gain access to the system and sign contracts, limiting the effectiveness of this support. The Ministry's decision underscores ongoing challenges in the government financial assistance system and is leading to calls for more robust planning and resource allocation to avoid such disruptions in the future.
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