FAFSA data delayed until March

U.S. Department of Ed just announced that FAFSA data won’t go out until early March.
https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-more-31-million-fafsa-forms-successfully-submitted-and-update-student-aid-index-calculation

Here are some excerpts:

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) today released new data that shows more than 3.1 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) forms have been successfully submitted since the 2024–25 redesigned application went live on Dec. 30. The new data comes a little more than three weeks after the Department announced more than one million FAFSA forms had been submitted and the form’s 24/7 accessibility.

To further support schools and state agencies, the Department will begin transmitting batches of FAFSA information—known as the Institutional Student Information Record or ISIR—to these partners in the first half of March. Students will also be able to make corrections to their form starting in the first half of March. We are continuing to test several vendor-built systems and we will provide regular progress updates to schools and stakeholders as we move forward.

This will all workout in the end, but I feel for the uncertainty this gives to students and families, and the workload/time crunch that will befall the fin aid staff at the schools.

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And I can’t let this go…seems like this should have happened WAY before now.

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@kelsmom can tell us all what a nightmare this is for the college financial aid offices…fielding phone calls and emails, and getting all those financial aid awards accurately sent so students can make informed decisions by May 1. Wondering if that date will get pushed ahead…

I say…shame on these folks. These guidelines were passed 3 years ago. That should have been plenty of time to get this done. It’s ridiculous that so many people have to wait so long for this information.

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This is going to create an awful “game” of musical chairs as students with acceptances to multiple colleges have to wait for their financial aid package before making a decision. Colleges will have a lot of uncertainty about yield which I would think trickles down to their decisions about deferred and waitlisted students.

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Agreed. I also think more students will double and triple deposit because I don’t see many schools extending the May 1 enrollment deadline. The ones that do will be the ones that did during 2020…and that’s generally not the popular and/or highly selective ones.

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What happens with updating/adding colleges to FAFSA? S24 applied to 21 colleges, so one had to be left off the initial submitted list of max 20, thinking we’d soon be able to switch it into the list. The one left off was UVa, since that had the latest FAFSA deadline, 1st March. Now it looks like we’ll miss that deadline. They might extend, but it still might look bad having a late submission date. All the other colleges will see it was submitted early January, and obviously not blame us for the delay, but UVa could see it as a late submission, and earlier submitters could get priority for some aid. (I’m assuming/guessing there is some kind of timestamp on when FAFSA was originally submitted, or when a college was added.)

Don’t worry about the deadlines…they are meaningless right now. I expect colleges are going to change them, they have no choice but to be flexible. They will know a student couldn’t update for their next set of schools until March.

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UVA requires the CSS Profile financial aid form through College Board so maybe they can make decisions based on that?

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The vast majority of students don’t get anything but federal loans, so none of those students needs the aid package right away (although if they don’t yet know that they won’t get anything but loans, it is problematic not to know earlier - which is a very real concern). The poorest students will get automatic Pell based on the new Pell guidelines, and I would hope that financial aid offices are in a position to be able to give them an idea of what their institutional aid would be, if any. Profile schools have enough information that they should be able to provide a decent estimate of an aid package before FAFSA is processed. It’s the people who don’t automatically qualify for Pell who will be left to worry. Some schools might award them need based aid while others might not. I expect a lot of students will want their situation reviewed, for example due to multiple students in college, and this will not happen right away (although if schools are smart, they’ll think about opening the process early so that all necessary documentation is in house when the FAFSAs arrive).

What a mess.

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Yes, we already had another school do that - an estimated/contingent finaid offer based on CSS, to be finalized after FAFSA. Definitely CSS schools can do this.
I just worry about the thing I heard that late submitters could miss out on certain limited funds that can run out, and that this could happen with a school not in the original FAFSA list of 20.

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The understatement of the year.

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You can say that again! I am glad that they have at least made the announcement, but this feels frightening to me even though my kids are at CSS schools.

Also, D24 is applying to a bunch of outside scholarships. A few of them use the FAFSA to determine eligibility and/or to decide if the kid will be moved to the semifinalist stage, which according to their timelines is supposed to happen within the next couple of weeks. I have no idea what this will mean and whether the scholarships being able to be awarded in enough time for students to make May 1 decisions.

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I feel so bad for everyone in the college admissions “game” this year - both hs class of '24 applicants and admissions and financial aid officers.
First the affirmative action decision meant that admissions offices are changing lots of things up this year trying to figure out how to ensure they still have diverse classes without running afoul of that decision (or class action lawyers!) - a lot more work for all these offices this year and much more unpredictability for applicants.
And can’t believe govt. then tried to roll out new financial aid system this same year!! All these delays will cause so much work for financial aid officers in the Spring and so much stress for applicants trying to make decisions (and also admissions officers trying to predict their class and applicants hoping for movement based on others turning down offers)
What a mess is right!

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Talked to an FA rep with more than 30 years experience today. She’s beside herself. Completely at a loss. She spent all last week rewriting her schools professional judgement guidelines as they anticipate getting completely buried.

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This…because it will also delay what’s what.

@kelsmom how will this affect those chosen for verification?

I am thinking the national response date will need to be pushed back to June 1. There just won’t be enough time for Financial Aid offices to get info out in time for people to make a decision.

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Same problem, thanks for asking!

It’s not just that. You can’t get a student loan without filing FAFSA. So a lot of kids who aren’t at Pell level, and aren’t applying to CSS schools, are really stuck.
The good thing, I guess, is that they’ll certainly be able to apply for it before the first day of class. Er, I think so?

Oh, hang on, just realizing that my kids’ colleges both had payment plans that began in July.
I think once we had to wait for a late-arriving scholarship, and in the meantime, we had to split up the payments assuming it wasn’t arriving.
Then we adjusted the payment plan when that arrived.

OMG.

Mid April for award letter?

https://www.ncan.org/news/663667/ED-Moves-Expected-ISIR-Delivery-to-First-Half-of-March-Likely-Pushing-Aid-Offers-to-April.htm