The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday announced several steps it would take to help colleges process the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, more efficiently amid continuing delays in the federal-aid system that are causing anxiety nationwide.
First, the department said it would significantly reduce verification requirements for federal-aid applicants during the 2024-25 aid cycle. During that onerous process, students selected for verification must submit documentation, such as income-tax returns, W-2 statements, and 1099 forms, to prove that they provided accurate information on the FAFSA. The process has long been recognized as a key barrier for low-income students, and it’s a time-consuming chore for financial-aid offices.
The new FAFSA, known widely as Better FAFSA, allows students and parents to pull in tax information directly from the Internal Revenue Service — a feature that many college-access advocates have anticipated would reduce the need for verification. A senior department official on Monday said that the relief the department plans to provide goes beyond that specific enhancement to the application: “We are going to bring verification rates to among their lowest ever, as we try to balance the need to protect taxpayers against fraud while also freeing up opportunities for colleges and universities to work with students.”
Pressed for more specific details about what applicants and colleges can expect, another senior department official said that in the years prior to the Covid-era pause on verification, as many as 30 percent of all FAFSA filers were selected for the process each cycle: “Not only are the rates going down, but the vast majority of verifications, to the extent that schools are selected to do it, will be related to identity, not income. That’s substantially easier to do and a lot less burden involved for both the filer and the school.”
The department also announced that it will suspend some routine program reviews through June 2024, except in cases of “serious issues,” such as suspected fraud or a significant breach of fiduciary duty. By easing up on program reviews, which determine whether a college is meeting departmental-eligibility requirements, the Education Department intends to enable colleges to devote more time to focus on getting financial-aid offers to students.
Finally, the department announced that it would give colleges greater flexibility when it comes to recertifying their eligibility for student-aid programs. Normally, colleges must do so at least 90 days before their Program Participation Agreement expires. But the department said it would waive that requirement for colleges with agreements expiring in March, June, or September. Those institutions will now have until the expiration date.
“These steps that we’re announcing today are a direct response to input we’ve received from financial-aid administrators, and college and university presidents, about where they’re seeing challenges with implementing Better FAFSA and the concrete steps we can take to help them process this information easier and simpler,” Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona said in a call with reporters late Monday afternoon. “Our top priority is to ensure students can access the maximum financial aid possible to help them pursue their higher-education goals. These steps reflect the many conversations my colleagues and I are having with college and university leaders, financial-aid administrators, students and parents, and others who are on the front lines of implementing Better FAFSA, and they make it clear that we’re listening.”
The announcement came one week after the department unveiled its FAFSA College Support Strategy, an initiative to help colleges process FAFSAs. Secretary Cardona said on Monday that the department would release test versions of Institutional Student Information Records — essentially, college-facing FAFSA data — by February 16, “so colleges can prepare their own systems and processes and more confidently assemble aid packages.” As part of that initiative, the department plans to deploy federal personnel to help support underresourced colleges, while allocating $50 million in technical assistance.
But once again the department announced a plan that does not mention fixes for the technical problems that are still preventing many families from completing the all-important application more than six weeks after it became available. There have been 20 “known issues,” or technical problems with the FAFSA, and just four have been fixed since the beginning of the year. And most of those problems prevent students from filing the application.
Since the new FAFSA went live, more than 4 million forms have been successfully submitted, the department said on Monday. But as The Chronicle recently reported, parents without a Social Security number can’t contribute to the FAFSA, which means their children can’t submit it. And many undocumented parents have been unable to create an FSA ID, which each FAFSA contributor needs to access the form.
A senior department official on Monday said that the department has been hearing many concerns about the problem from students, families, and college counselors and officials — but offered no timeline for a fix. “I don’t have news to share at the moment,” the official said. “But it’s an issue that is very, very important to us, and we’re working very hard to find a path forward.”
Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said in a statement that the organization applauded “these initial measures from the department to significantly lower student-verification requirements and temporarily pause program reviews, which are critical first steps in ensuring financial-aid offices — already stretched perilously thin — will have the bandwidth necessary to focus on students.”
“To make this work,” the statement continued, “higher-education stakeholders require a sustained effort, which includes additional administrative relief and the department meeting its FAFSA-processing timelines going forward. Schools have been told to expect test records by the end of this week, and processed FAFSA information in the first half of March, which will be vital to provide students and families with need-based financial-aid information this spring. Students and families cannot afford any additional delays.”
