Amid news that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) is delaying the sending out of student information relevant for financial aid calculations to institutions, higher ed scholars and officials have voiced concern and uncertainty over how this change will affect low-income and first-generation students in particular.
Dr. Greg Nayor
In what has been another delay, ED announced last week that schools and agencies involved in financial aid will receive Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) information – which they use to determine student total financial aid offerings – until the first half of March. This announcement means a two-month setback, since ED had previously said that the FAFSA information, part of the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR), would be sent out “later in January.”
This potentially presents colleges, universities, and other organizations less time to calculate student need-based financial aid packages, which consist of institutional, state, and federal aid. And if schools stick to typical acceptance deadlines of around May 1, this delay may mean an even tighter window for students to weigh prices and pick which of their schools they ultimately want to attend.
"In the best-case scenario now, if mid-March is really March 15th and all data that comes over from the FAFSA is accurate, then colleges and universities could start making award notifications to students early April, which gives [prospective students] about a month,” said Dr. Greg Nayor, vice president of enrollment management at La Salle University. “It really does shorten things up quite a bit."
ED has had several stumbles following an overhaul of the FAFSA form, as mandated by Congress’s FAFSA Simplification Act, starting the 2024–25 award year. The overhaul – which comes with form simplifications, different student aid measures and calculations, and expanded Pell Grant eligibility – is expected to be beneficial and to increase federal financial aid eligibility, according to a 2023 report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO). Specifically in regard to Pell Grants, almost 220,000 students will gain eligibility in 2023-24, the SHEEO report stated.
However, the changes to how aid is measured will take away grant eligibility for some students as well, namely students with siblings in higher ed. The new FAFSA formula removes the number of family members in college from calculations, and “in many cases,” will make students with college-attending siblings “be eligible for considerably less financial aid,” a 2023 Brookings Institute report stated.
Even before it launched, the 2024-2025 FAFSA form faced criticism for its calculations not accounting for inflation, a now-fixed issue that was part of the reason for this most recent delay. It then proceeded with its pre-announced delayed launch on Dec. 30 instead of the usual Oct. 1. The late “soft launch” took place but several technical issues and limited windows of accessibility – the latter issue was addressed by Jan. 8 – had left applicants frustrated.
