Just reporting a surprise for which we are grateful. Maybe a ray of hope in all the waiting.
We were on a financial aid webinar Thursday night. S24’s top choice school got their first report on Thursday. Literally they received their first and only so far that day. But by Friday the portal showed they had gotten his, and by Saturday got us our financial aid offer.
I hope that this might all unravel soon for all of you who have been waiting so long.
A newly identified issue, brought to the attention of FSA by financial aid administrators, was communicated to the financial aid community. The issue appears to only affect a small subset of FAFSAs. Because I don’t know the specifics, I can’t offer any ideas regarding how it might affect the SAI. Here is some of the information provided to the financial aid community this past weekend:
Update on March 30, 2024: We have worked closely with IRS to assess the reports concerning incorrect tax data sent to schools on the Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) for 2024-25 FAFSA applications. Our initial analysis shows that fewer than 20% of applications are affected by one of the following issues:
Some data fields are pulled from a mix of updated and original returns leading to inconsistent tax data.
Education tax credit data field is inaccurate.
For manually entered tax information, inaccurate reported values for education tax credits and income taxes paid, due to discrepancies in the instructions.
We will provide detailed information about the identification of affected students and remediation plans for these issues on Monday, April 1, 2024, including how to continue processing the majority of applications that have been successfully sent.
OMG really? The IRS tax feed isn’t working right 100% of the time and they are just finding this out? Truly unbelievable…a comedy of errors.
And it was the aid administrators, not FSA, who discovered it. Do they not test their own systems? I don’t understand.
I don’t understand either…I could hypothesize but won’t. I hope they figure it out soon.
Does anyone know what the last resort scenario will be for schools if technical issues persist through the month and Fafsa does not allow access to submit signatures,etc. - and if schools will distribute their grant aid if they have incomplete forms?
Everything is school dependent. You need to ask each school. However, I would hope that schools understand the issues at hand and will do everything possible to be fair to all applicants.
Got an interesting note from a school today saying they have received almost 2500 ISIRs and plan to have award letters to all applicants by Friday.
I looked and they typically accept more than 5,000. So they must be counting on getting the other half soon and turning it around fast.
But… it also says that there are errors in the data. And that they will fix them ASAP. So for now consider the award the minimum amount of aid that you’ll receive.
So I’m guessing every aid recipient is going to hold out for the maximum amount, and send lots of emails and calls about it.
Just shows what a terrible bind the schools are in. They are doing the best they can. But they are out of time. The fact that they sent us this email today is amazing to me. Again, that’s not a criticism. They have to do something. But the train wreck continues.
Be nice to them is all I can say.
Oh, I am incredibly glad I no longer work in financial aid. This announcement today would cause me to quit on the spot if I was still working: Update on Tax Data Received from the FA-DDX and Manually Entered Information | Knowledge Center. The announcement raises so many questions in my mind. If I thought that the transition this year was rough, I was wrong … it’s so much worse than I could have imagined. Schools will make it work, but the big worry will be on their end to make sure that in making it work, they don’t do anything that blows their institutional budget. And making sure that they do everything in a way that will pass audits and program reviews has to be a huge concern.
The other end of the pendulum swing is being so careful/stingy that you leave hundreds of dorm rooms empty. Won’t be a problem at the elite places of course. But if you are battling for bodies you are walking a really fine line.
Some will guess wrong in one direction or the other. And it 100 percent will not be their fault.
I suspect that for many, they will err on the side of providing more aid - precisely because they may end up with fewer students otherwise. But yes, there will be schools that will err on the other side due to fiscal constraints, and those schools could be in for a smaller class as a result. I think that the admissions cycle is going to go on & on this year.
Anecdotally, over the past few years we’ve noticed some local kids making decisions later and later. Still fielding offers after graduation. Still getting aid, changing their minds. You’ve always had some of that, but it just seems like we’re gearing up for a chaotic summer.
I’ve read on various Facebook groups that aid packages are showing the SAI as double what the FAFSA result was. Has anyone heard of this?
I have not heard that. I assume that people are claiming that the aid packages show an SAI double what their FAFSA said. It’s certainly possible that the original SAI provided to the student based on filing the FAFSA has changed, since there were some problems with the formula not calculating correctly. However, I actually doubt that it would result in an SAI doubling (unless the initial SAI was quite low). What might be happening is that aid packages have gaps, and people are incorrectly assuming that the SAI is the problem. For example, say that COA is $35,500 and SAI is 15,000. If the total aid offered is a $5,500 loan, there is a big gap between need and aid offered. But this doesn’t mean that the SAI was determined to be 30,000. It just means that the school doesn’t meet need.
Are they saying that the aid package lists an SAI & that the listed SAI is double what they received as an SAI on their actual FAFSA?
I’ll try to find it again, but the expected contribution was exactly double the SAI. So if the SAI was 8,234 the contribution was $16,468. It could be what you are describing but they are seeing a number that is double the SAI.
I feel the same…and had low expectations to start with because, well, the government. It’s going to be a long hard few months for FA staffs, on the heels of several long hard months.
Okay, so one is on Paying for College 101 posted yesterday with a picture. I don’t want to share a screenshot. But the picture says “expected family contribution/Student Aid Index” beneath a number. The person says that number is exactly double the SAI they received from the FAFSA.
There will be some updates to the original SAI for people who are affected by the issues with calculations that have occurred. They may not see the updated SAI yet in their FAFSA portal. It’s possible that the school received the updated information from the processor, or they may be using an internal program that is calculating the SAI based on the information they have. Hard to say. But the SAI might increase. I just find it to be a huge coincidence if the new SAI is EXACTLY twice the original SAI. I am always leery of these kinds of coincidences. There is usually a glitch somewhere in the process.
Obviously, whatever information the school has at this time is what they will use to package aid. It’s possible that the current estimate could change, but it could stay the same. If my SAI doubled, I would pull up the 2024-25 SAI formula guide & carefully complete the worksheets. If my manual calculations matched the SAI the school sent me, I would know that the original SAI was impacted by the problems with FSA’s processing. If my calculations showed that the school’s calculations were too high, I’d contact them to ask for an explanation.
Yes, ours changed significantly and more than doubled. It would feel weird if it exactly doubled. Hopefully they contact the school or check it on their own. We have not yet received anything from a college, but I am definitely curious.
Just a side note from that notice:
“about 10% of FAFSAs, reprocessing would be expected to increase students’ SAI and reduce financial aid eligibility. In that circumstance, institutions may use their professional judgment to decide on a case-by-case basis, whether to proceed with the current ISIRs for FAFSAs when reprocessing is expected to increase students’ SAI and reduce financial aid eligibility…”
One thing I wonder about is NEXT year. I know an offer of aid is good for one year, and things change. But some of these people might be in for a surprise next year if they get aid based on an artificially deflated SAI this year, and the true SAI comes through next year.