The Department of Education has seen an increase in the number of Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSAs) submitted for the 2009-10 application processing year. The Department told NASFAA that by the last week in February it had processed almost 3 million applications for federal student aid for the 2009-10 award year. This is an increase of more than 20 percent over the 2008-09 FAFSA processing cycle for the comparable period.

The Department plans to post detailed FAFSA processing statistics for 08-09 and 09-10 on the IFAP Web site in late March/early April broken down by states and schools.

The Department also reported an increase in loan volume for both the Direct Loan and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) programs this year compared to the same time period last year.

Loan volume in the Direct Loan program has increased more than $7 billion so far this academic year compared to the same time period in the 2007-08 academic year. So far this academic year, the Direct Loan program has made 1.6 million more loans at 548 more schools compared to the same time period last year.

The FFELP has also made more loans so far, but fifty-nine fewer schools used the FFELP as of Feb. 26 this year compared to the same time period last year. As of Feb. 26, the FFELP had issued 1.4 million more loans this year compared to the same date last year an increase of $6.2 billion.

Direct Loan volume as of Feb. 25, 2009 compared to last year's volume

	2008-09	2007-08
Schools	1,620	1,072
number of loans	4.5 million	2.9 million
total loan dollars	$20.2 billion	$13.1 billion

Same for FFEL as of Feb. 26 2009

	2008-09	2007-08
Schools	4,424	4,583
number of loans	11.2 million	9.8 million
total loan dollars	$57.1 billion	$50.9 billion

Posted 03/06/09 to www.NASFAA.org. Redistribution to non-NASFAA institutions is prohibited. Please submit Web site questions or comments to Web@NASFAA.org.