FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Allie Arcese
Sr. Director, Strategic Communications
(202) 785-6954
[email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 17, 2024 — On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that institutions would be unable to submit corrections to student FAFSA records in bulk until the first half of August — a standard process that is normally 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. The net effect is that some students with special circumstances still cannot receive final financial aid offers or financial aid for the 2024-25 school year. 

In response to this news, NASFAA President & CEO Justin Draeger released the following statement:

"The idea that some college students are hoping to begin classes in a matter of weeks and are still unable to get a final financial aid offer is unacceptable. The longer we go without the ability for schools to efficiently and quickly make corrections to student FAFSA records, the greater the uncertainty becomes for students who are still hanging in the balance.

Any students who have special circumstances that need to be addressed — such as a dependency override, a parent who lost their job, or any other change that requires a correction from their school — will be left waiting yet again. 

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. 

In the end, it’s the most vulnerable students who will once again be harmed by this delay. 

This patchwork functionality is not how the system is intended to operate and is exactly the kind of situation that we hope to avoid for next year’s FAFSA. That’s why we continue to urge the Department to 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."

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About NASFAA

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents more than 29,000 financial aid professionals at approximately 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every 10 undergraduates in the U.S. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators.