Yes. Basically, they can process any necessary changes due to PJ, verification and other reasons for change right before school starts … after, for summer header terms and early semester starts. Federal regulations require that aid be paid on the correct transaction, so having to pay first and document everything after the fact is a compliance nightmare.
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Not to mention that the College Board owns/runs the CSS profile. Interestingly, on Twitter, another educator (I don’t think it was Jon) did a long thread on coming back from a conference, and the College Board was there pushing the CSS to every college on-site.
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CSS Profile costs money, while FAFSA is free. FAFSA was simplified because too many families found it too difficult to complete - Profile is harder to complete than FAFSA ever was. Letting the fix loose in the henhouse is a very bad idea.
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Don’t disagree, but just wanted to point out that CSS is free for those with an AGI under $100k.
And so far…the new FAFSA has had so many glitches that it sometimes can’t be processed without a big song and dance…and it sounds like the issues are not all resolved even now.
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And wouldn’t it be awesome if College Board could figure out a way to get the government to subsidize those free applications?
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I do not vote for the government subsidizing the College Board.
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That’s why it’s abhorrent that the government has hired a CB executive to run FSA. And evidently that person is only taking a leave of absence from CB, not quitting his job.
From Jon Boeckenstedt’s article which I linked above:
Jeremy Singer of the College Board has been tapped to help The Department of Education fix the FAFSA. If Mr. Singer had quit his job at College Board to take this public-service government position, I’d probably not have thought twice about it. But people don’t just give up a $1.7M salary to suddenly help students get financial aid: He is on sort of what–loan?–to The Education Department? And the plan, at least for now, appears to have him coming back to College Board after the fix.
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Boo.
CB’s CIO temporarily moving to FSA as well.
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Well…gee…who will be making sure the Profile and other college board things continue to perk along…
CB brings is 983 million a year. I’m sure they can find someone. 
My student recently received notification from her college that they won’t be able to make adjustments to her aid until August now as well. I just find this whole debacle so ridiculous. She has a sibling, and is at a unicorn full-need FAFSA only school. I can’t imagine what we would have done last year if we were headed to August with no financial aid finalized. I think a different choice would have been made, which would have been super sad because my child is absolutely thriving, and it was (at least for last year) by far the most affordable.
I feel so bad for the financial aid office too. They are going to estimate it with info from her siblings bill, so we have some level of planning with the first part of the bill due very very soon. But to still have stuff up in the air must be a nightmare for them too. And who knows if they will actually be able to adjust in August given the federal track record on this.
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I’m guessing that there are a lot of financial aid folks who didn’t get a vacation this year, along with plenty of admissions folks who were busy trying to keep students from jumping ship. It’s absolutely awful for everyone, but especially bad for incoming freshmen.
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No batch corrections will be allowed at all this cycle. FA staff must manually submit each FAFSA correction individually. FSA says they can’t program the batch submissions because they have to prioritize 2025-26 FAFSA development which is already likely to launch later than Oct 1.
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I read that this morning, and I once again thanked my lucky stars that I no longer work in financial aid. The amount of manual labor this decision requires is insane. I don’t know how schools are going to be able to get refunds to students in a timely manner.
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I agree. Seems like a number of parents at my S’s school are still waiting for complete packages and some assistance on applying for various loans.
I have low expectations for next cycle too, sadly.
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I’m guessing that schools were operating under the assumption that they would actually be able to batch process. No school with a large number of necessary updates would do them by hand if they didn’t have to. Now it’s crunch time, and this puts schools very far behind. I honestly can’t imagine how awful it must be to try to get everything done by the time school starts. And it’s worse for families who don’t yet know what they will owe. I used a payment plan for D, and it was hard enough for me to figure out my monthly payment amount when I knew my aid …
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really? Guess those people they poached from the College Board aren’t all that great after all 
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FSA was already far behind for 2025-26 before they borrowed the CB peeps. And they are borrowed, they are not permanent hires.
AFAIK draft fafsa is typically released in April each year, then comments, then finalized for Oct 1 launch. Draft 2025-26 FAFSA has not been released yet.
What could go wrong?!
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