Colleges and universities across the United States are pushing back their fall 2024 enrollment, application, and financial aid deadlines after the Biden administration said they won’t receive student financial aid information until mid-March.
Although the deadline varies from school to school, most American colleges use May 1, what’s known as College Decision Day, as the last day students can make acceptance decisions if they apply under regular decision or early action.
This year, however, a growing number of institutions are pushing the final decision dates to June, if not suspending those deadlines indefinitely.
The adjustments come after this past week’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Education won’t transmit students’ submitted Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms to colleges until “the first half of March.”
The Education Department previously promised to start transmitting FAFSA data by the end of January.
This pushed-back timeline marks the latest disruption to the rollout of the new, streamlined FAFSA, a process already troubled with delays and technical glitches.
As federal education officials refuse to specify exactly how many additional days it will take to process FAFSA, college administrators remain uncertain about when they will receive the information, which is essential for determining the size of financial aid offers.
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is among the first institutions to announce extensions. Just a few hours after the delay was announced on Jan. 30, the UIC said it would extend the usual May 1 commitment deadline by a month.
“Due to federal processing delays, financial aid notifications are not expected for admitted students until late April and possibly early May,” it told students and families. “UIC has extended the deadline for students to accept their offer of admission to June 1 to accommodate the delays.”
Oregon State University followed close behind on Jan. 31, also extending the deadline to June 1 for all students, regardless of whether they have completed a FAFSA.
“It’s now clear that holding to the traditional May 1 deadline would impose impossible constraints on parents and students who need to receive, process, and consider financial aid offers before making a final college choice for Fall 2024,” the university said.
The University of New Hampshire, meanwhile, switched to rolling admissions. This means the school will continue evaluating applications as they are received until it has filled all the slots for its incoming class, as opposed to waiting to evaluate all applications after a hard deadline.
“In response to the many students and families impacted by changes to the FAFSA, we have extended our regular decision application deadline for undergraduate admissions to a rolling basis until we have a clearer understanding of financial aid award announcements,” the university said, encouraging students to “make the most of this window of opportunity” wherever they are in the application process.
Federal Watchdog Probing FAFSA Delays
The repeated delays in the 2023-2024 FAFSA cycle have drawn much criticism from Republican members of Congress who are seeking to hold the Biden administration accountable for leaving students and families less time to make informed decisions.On Feb. 1, four Republican senators announced that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has begun an investigation into the Education Department’s “incompetent mishandling” of FAFSA following a bicameral request from Republican lawmakers earlier this year.
“The biggest concern is for those high school students who are just now attending college for the first time who have not been through this before,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said at the Feb. 1 press conference.
“Many students will likely forgo college because they do not know if they can afford it.”
“President Biden and Secretary [Miguel] Cardona, you need to explain why the American people are having to live with the consequences of this administration’s upside-down priorities,” he added.
The new FAFSA is mandated under an education bill signed into law by President Donald Trump near the end of his first term in 2020.
The legislative effort was meant to streamline the lengthy, 108-question student aid form with simplified processes for families to provide their tax and income information.
Typically, the Education Department makes the FAFSA available on Oct. 1 and colleges receive applicant data shortly thereafter, but the redesigned FAFSA didn’t go live until Dec. 30, 2023—almost three months later than usual.
