Education Department Begins Sending Financial Aid Data After Months of Delays

U.S. Department of Education in Washington on July 6, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Department of Education started sending out student financial aid information to some colleges and universities this week after months of delays and technical issues.

The department said that it sent the first batch of information to “a few dozen schools” on Sunday and is collecting feedback to identify any technical issues before expanding delivery to more institutions.

The department refrained from identifying the first schools that received the information or specifying the quantity of information sent. It stated that the volume of student records sent will vary each day.

“Once we have ramped up delivery, we anticipate it will take about two additional weeks to process all applications that have already been submitted,” it stated on March 4. “This is consistent with the timeline we announced on January 30.”

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) information is used to award state and federal education grants, and schools use it to assemble financial aid packages for prospective students.

Its overhaul delayed the form’s usual rollout from October to December. The department then soft-launched the new version to address bugs in the system, but many families reported difficulties accessing the form.

The department initially promised to start transmitting FAFSA data by the end of January but later announced that the data would not be delivered to schools until “the first half of March.”

The delay has cut into the time schools usually have to assemble financial aid packages before the typical May 1 deadline for students to commit to a university.

Lawmakers Demand Answers

In a Feb. 12 letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, more than 100 Democratic lawmakers questioned how the department intends to minimize the impact of the delays on students and families.

They asked whether the department will consider reducing the rate of students selected for additional verification to ensure they do not face further barriers in receiving the aid. The lawmakers also questioned if the challenges were caused by a lack of resources.

“Any delays in financial aid processing will most impact the students that need aid most, including many students of color, students from mixed-status families, students from rural backgrounds, students experiencing homelessness or in foster care, first-generation students, and students from underserved communities,” the letter reads.

“For institutions to support students’ ability to make informed decisions about their future, they need clear guidance and resources from the Department immediately on any and all next steps,” it added.

Republicans in the House and Senate also sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office in January, urging it to investigate the “botched” rollout of the new version of the FAFSA forms.

“Despite having three years to prepare for the FAFSA rollout, [the Department of Education] only made the application available for borrowers for a mere 30 minutes on Dec. 30 before taking it down and then making it live for only one additional hour on Dec. 31,” they said.

“The application was then only accessible for sporadic periods until it became fully live on Saturday, January 6th, days after the deadline set by Congress,” the Republican lawmakers added.

They stated that the department’s repeated delays in rolling out the new FAFSA forms have left students and schools in limbo for the upcoming school year.

“All these challenges and delays may cause some students—particularly low-income students who are most dependent on federal aid—to give up and not pursue postsecondary education,” they argued.

The department reported that, so far, only around 3.6 million students have been able to fill out the new FAFSA form, a significant decrease from the usual 17 million applications every year.

Bill Pan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.