May 1 is usually when high school seniors start flaunting T-shirts and hats from the colleges they’ll be attending in the fall.
But decision day is looking more muted this year, the result of a scrambled financial aid application process that has pushed some enrollment deadlines well past Memorial Day.
Christy Loop Dervishi, a teacher in Washington, D.C., said she filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as FAFSA, for her son in January. But the error-ridden overhaul of this year’s application has gummed things up for millions of students, including her son, Rias. Dervishi said she was recently told his form had been flagged for corrections and would need reprocessing.
Rias, 18, applied to five schools, got into three, and narrowed his choices to two: James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and the University of South Carolina, Columbia.
He hasn’t been offered any merit-based awards at James Madison but is still awaiting potential need-based aid, Dervishi said. So far, he has received two merit scholarships from USC Columbia and expects a roughly $2,000 federal Pell Grant, but he has yet to hear a final figure.
“Without knowing, he doesn’t know which school is more affordable,” Dervishi said via email. Fortunately, both schools have given Rias more time to make a final decision.
“There are others in much worse situations than my son,” she added. “It’s heartbreaking for some children.”
While higher-education officials across the country have been trying to accommodate applicants affected by the delays, many households are already making tough choices, NBC News has reported. Some have ditched dream schools for cheaper ones or rearranged their finances to afford pricey institutions whose total costs were up in the air much longer than expected.
Because FAFSA information is a prerequisite for many other forms of aid, the series of glitches and errors that plagued the system since its December rollout into this spring has held up many campus officials’ efforts to assemble their own financial packages for admitted students.
And that’s for those who’ve managed to submit their FAFSAs to begin with. Form completions were down by almost 30% year-over-year through April 19, according to the National College Attainment Network.
But decision day isn’t a bust for everyone, and the FAFSA situation is improving. Some families who had faced uncertainty are now getting the funding information they need to make decisions.
Kerri Harrelson, a single mother and infant/toddler developmental specialist in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, said her daughter has finally started receiving financial aid offers. Bricelyn, 18, wasted no time in committing to her top choice, Iowa State University, after it recently offered her a full package that included need-based aid.
“She is excited about her future!” Harrelson said, sounding relieved after speaking with NBC News a month ago. At the time, Bricelyn had just finished blasting out a second batch of applications to cheaper state schools, fearing she might not be able to afford those she’d initially applied to with much of her aid information still unknown.
The Education Department has nearly finished working through its backlog, and “students who complete a FAFSA today can expect their records to be sent to colleges within one to three days,” Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal told reporters Tuesday.
Officials have received over 8.4 million FAFSA submissions and processed more than 8.3 million, he said. They have also processed almost 1 million corrections for issues like missing signatures or IRS tax data authorizations.
Reprocessing forms affected by two previously announced system issues “should enable all institutions to package aid offers,” agency officials said Monday. And a glitch that had prevented some applicants without Social Security numbers from completing FAFSAs is also being resolved, Kvaal said.
Any schools that had opted to wait for all accurate information before sending financial aid packages to prospective students can now do so, the department said Monday.
Federal authorities are reaching out to 700 high school superintendents nationwide to encourage families to finish incomplete FAFSA applications. “If you have been waiting for the dust to settle, now is the time to come in and complete your FAFSA,” a senior department official said on Tuesday’s press call.
The efforts come as the department faces growing pressure on Capitol Hill. Senators rebuked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona during an appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday. “What happened with the FAFSA system is simply inexcusable and inexplicable,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said.
Cardona acknowledged the problems. “Our kids deserve better, and we are working around the clock to make sure it improves,” he said.
Last week the head of the Federal Student Aid office that administers FAFSA announced he would step down at the end of June.
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a network that has sharply criticized the Department of Education over this year’s FAFSA process, applauded its momentum in clearing up roadblocks.
“We are pleased to see the Department make forward progress on its timeline to provide accurate student FAFSA information to colleges and universities, so they can complete the work of packaging and delivering financial aid offers to students,” the association’s president and CEO, Justin Draeger, said in a statement Tuesday.
