"Helen Faith, the financial aid director at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is usually busy this time of year with a familiar agenda: hosting informational sessions on financial aid applications for families, reviewing prospective students’ forms and generally revving up her office’s well-oiled machinery to start crunching numbers and spitting out student aid packages," Inside Higher Ed reports. 

"But with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid launch delayed by at least two months, Faith’s fall calendar is up in the air. And she’s not the only one."

..."For institutions, however, the changes could be expensive. If students’ federal financial aid goes up, colleges may have to increase institutional aid as well, and if it goes down, they may need to use their own funds to make up the difference—especially for current students, who will be immediately affected by the new calculations. But the money isn’t unlimited, so institutions have analyzed data and run models to estimate how much more aid they might have to put up.

'We’ve got a plan in place,' said Brad Barnett, financial aid director and associate vice president for access and enrollment management at James Madison University. 'The question is, will the plan be accurate? This is where we’re going to have to be nimble as an institution. It could cost us more or less than what we’re anticipating based on what actually happens.'

For now, Barnett said there’s not much more the university can do to prepare. Officials are ready to get the new form and start processing students’ information—ideally, as soon as possible.

'It’s just a new learning curve for all of us who’ve been doing this for a very long time,' he said. 'At this stage of the game, we’re as prepared as we can be until we see the full application and what it actually looks like and how it actually works.'"

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Articles included under the notable headlines section are not written by NASFAA, but rather by external sources. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

Publication Date: 10/6/2023