Dive Transient:
- The U.S. Division of Training confirmed Wednesday that it plans to regulate key metrics for figuring out how a lot support college students qualify for once they fill out the brand new Free Software for Federal Scholar Assist.
- The company plans to regulate revenue tables for inflation that it makes use of to calculate pupil support eligibility, a transfer that may give college students an extra $1.8 billion in federal pupil support, in keeping with a division spokesperson. NPR first reported the information.
- The Training Division initially informed The Washington Submit that it wouldn’t have time to replace the revenue tables earlier than it rolled out the brand new FAFSA on Dec. 30. The company mentioned it plans to share extra particulars on the timeline quickly.
Dive Perception:
In late December, the Training Division launched a brand new streamlined FAFSA, which diminished the variety of questions college students or households should reply from over 100 to just some dozen.
The brand new kind additionally makes use of a extra beneficiant system that shields extra of a household’s revenue when figuring out their support eligibility. However the Training Division initially used outdated revenue tables that did not account for inflation.
Late final yr, the company mentioned it will make the changes for the subsequent FAFSA cycle, The Washington Submit reported.
Adjusting the tables is the “proper factor to do,” Justin Draeger, the president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Scholar Monetary Assist Directors mentioned in a press release Tuesday. But it surely ought to have been finished from the start, he mentioned.
“Sadly, as a result of the Division is making these updates so late within the monetary support processing cycle, college students will now pay the worth within the type of extra delays in monetary support gives and compressed decision-making timelines,” Draeger mentioned.
This yr’s FAFSA launch got here practically three months later than normal, giving schools a lot much less time to calculate their monetary support gives to college students. Furthermore, the Training Division has mentioned that it wouldn’t transmit FAFSA knowledge to schools till late January.
An Training Division spokesperson didn’t reply whether or not that timeline will change.
“Colleges had been promised FAFSA applicant knowledge by the tip of January,” Draeger mentioned. “With lower than every week to go, the Division has introduced a major operational change that clearly throws that date into query.”
Draeger urged the Training Division to supply schools with steering on when the changes can be made, when it should transmit FAFSA knowledge to establishments and whether or not purposes will must be reprocessed as a result of adjustments.
