ED: Batch Institutional Corrections Will Become Available in 'First Half' of August
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Monday gave several updates on the status of the 2024-25 FAFSA cycle, including that batch institutional corrections, as well as paper FAFSA corrections, will be available in the “first half” of August.
In an electronic announcement, ED wrote that it is “working diligently” to release additional functionality to the 2024-25 FAFSA. Batch institutional corrections via the Electronic Data Exchange (EDE), as well as paper FAFSA corrections, will be available in the first half of August. In a normal FAFSA cycle, this is a standard process that is available at the same time the FAFSA application goes live, and is necessary to complete for some students before a final financial aid offer can be issued and before student aid disbursements can be made.
Additionally, ED wrote that it is entering the final testing phases of processing 2024-25 paper FAFSA forms, including those submitted by confined or incarcerated students, and allowing institutions to submit manual corrections via the FAFSA Partner Portal (FPP.) ED previously said in May that institutions would be able to submit those manual corrections “by the end of June.”
In Monday’s electronic announcement, the department wrote that it expects to meet that timeline, contingent upon testing. ED added that in the weeks following the launch of FPP corrections, the department will release additional enhancements.
NASFAA President and CEO Justin Draeger said Monday’s announcement is unacceptable, noting that the longer aid offices go without the ability to efficiently and quickly make batch corrections, the greater the uncertainty becomes for students who are still hanging in the balance.
“While the Department has provided ‘workarounds’ for schools to make corrections on a student-by-student basis, these processes are impractical for large schools and impossible for under-resourced schools, all while asking institutions to take on an unacceptable amount of risk,” Draeger said. “In the end, it’s the most vulnerable students who will once again be harmed by this delay.”
ED also noted that it plans to perform additional identity verification and the NSLDS post-screening processes for 2024-25 FAFSA “later in the calendar year.” ED will share additional guidance and tools for institutions in the following days.
Monday’s electronic announcement touched on news from last week concerning the next FAFSA cycle. ED reiterated that the 2025-26 FAFSA will have no substantive changes from the 2024-25 form, and therefore will not be available for public comment but will focus on improving user experience.
Further, ED will be hosting a series of listening sessions in the coming weeks to hear how to better support students, families, institutions, and other stakeholders for the 2025-26 FAFSA cycle. ED will also be announcing a new series of webinars and online videos in the coming weeks to better help students and families submit the FAFSA.
This summer, ED will release a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit feedback from those not able to attend the sessions. According to ED, it will request feedback from financial aid administrators, counselors and others on ways ED can provide additional support to them in their work. The listening sessions and RFI will inform ED to release a new “Better FAFSA Better Future Roadmap,” which will be released in the late summer.
Draeger stressed that for the 2025-26 FAFSA, the department must ensure that the entire FAFSA system — from the application itself to processing and the ability to make corrections — is up and running smoothly at the time the application goes live.
Publication Date: 6/17/2024
Sheree T | 6/18/2024 1:3:42 PM
I am not sure that they really want our "feedback". If we did our jobs the way that the ED is doing their jobs, I don't think we would have jobs.
Kimberly L | 6/18/2024 12:39:52 PM
This is beyond disturbing.
Gregory G | 6/18/2024 9:47:29 AM
The Dept is clearly not administratively capable and should be held accountable to the same standards & federal regulations that they would apply to IHEs.
Holly S | 6/18/2024 9:40:00 AM
FSA delays and postpones deadlines and expectations for themselves many, many times. Can they give schools some grace and delay the GE/FVT reporting beyond the previous meager extension?
Aaron R | 6/18/2024 8:48:32 AM
This administration is such a joke.
Andrew F | 6/18/2024 8:42:07 AM
What’s the point of a listening session. Students can’t reach your help line. When they do, they just get told to contact the school and they will fix the problem (regardless of what it is). We just need FSA to do their job and stick to the timeline they originally set. It’s that simple.
David V | 6/17/2024 5:12:45 PM
With all of this happening, they better further delay the reporting of GE/FVT.
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