Monday, April 29, 2024
Monday, April 22, 2024
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
FAFSA Completion Down 40 Percent [ InsideHigherEd.com ]
As of March 29, 40 percent fewer high school students had completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid than they did by that date in 2023, according to newly released data from the Department of Education, a massive drop caused largely by the new form’s disastrous rollout.
The article:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/04/09/fafsa-completion-down-40-percent
Monday, April 8, 2024
Friday, April 5, 2024
Tech Glitch Upends Financial Aid for About a Million Students [ WSJ ]
The flava:
The new Fafsa application form was released in late December, nearly three months later than usual. When families did gain access to it, they reported login woes and error messages. The Education Department said in late January that because it overlooked certain inflation calculations, it wouldn’t start releasing students’ aid information to schools until mid-March. Students who had already submitted their forms but made mistakes—like omitting certain schools from their lists or checking the wrong box regarding their own assets—were told they’d need to wait until the form was processed in mid-April before they could go back in and update their paperwork.
Many schools already delayed the deadline by which admitted students are expected to put down deposits and claim their seats, pushing the cutoff to May 15 or June 1, rather than the traditional May 1. This latest issue further compresses the timeline for students to make college decisions and has led many families to not even bother submitting the forms.
Fewer students have applied for aid under the new system. Completion rates were down nearly 29% through March 22, compared with a year earlier, according to an analysis by the National College Attainment Network, a nonprofit. Students in low-income high schools or schools with large populations of minorities were lagging even further behind.
The article: