Hundreds of thousands of college financial aid forms need corrections

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. Department of Education says a calculation error was discovered in hundreds of thousands of student financial aid applications sent to colleges this month and they must be reprocessed. The blunder follows a series of other mistakes that could lead to further delays. This year's university application.

The department announced Friday that a contractor working for the federal government incorrectly calculated financial aid formulas for more than 200,000 students. This information was sent to the university to assist in the preparation of financial aid packages, but is currently in progress even though the department is working to clear a backlog of more than 4 million financial aid applications. needs to be recalculated.

The issue does not affect the 1.3 million applications that were successfully processed and distributed to universities this month, the Education Ministry said in a statement. Officials said the error had been corrected and “will not affect future records.”

The department only began sending records within the last two weeks, so it is unlikely that many, if any, students received scholarship offers based on incorrect information. Once a university receives that information, it typically takes several weeks to assemble a financial aid package.

College applicants are left in limbo this year as they await the Department of Education's overhaul of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid system. This form, known as the FAFSA, is used to determine eligibility for the Federal Pell Grant, and colleges and states use it to award their own financial aid to students.

The update was intended to simplify forms, but it took several months longer than expected. This reduces the time universities have to offer financial aid to students, and the time students have to decide where to enroll.

“This is another unforced error that will likely cause additional processing delays for students,” said Justin Drager, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

After so many delays, “all the mistakes will add up and will be felt keenly by all students who rely on need-based financial aid to make their post-secondary dreams a reality.” ” he added.

The recent failure involves the Student Aid Index, a new formula used to determine a student's level of financial need after submitting a FAFSA application. An agency memo sent to universities on Friday said the department forgot to account for certain financial assets, such as investments, savings and total cash, for some students.

As a result, these students had lower student aid indexes, indicating they had more financial need than they actually had.

The ministry is correcting these students' records while encouraging universities to make their own calculations and create “interim aid packages.”

Draeger opposed that idea, saying universities can only work with “valid, correct data.”

“Submitting erroneous FAFSA data and having thousands of schools submit real-time federal formula calculations and adjustments is not feasible or practical,” he said.

Advocates worry that this year's confusing process could deter students, especially those whose finances are a big part of their decision, from attending college altogether.

Senate Republicans are requesting a hearing with Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to discuss “serious concerns” about the FAFSA rollout.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said in a video message Friday that it is “not right” to ask universities to correct the department's mistakes.

“We should have done it right the first time and we should have done it right three months ago,” said Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “We need more accountability, more responsibility and more trust from the Department of Education.”

The notoriously time-consuming FAFSA form was the subject of an overhaul in 2020 through a bipartisan bill in Congress. The bill promises to simplify the question format, reducing the number of questions from 100 to fewer than 40, and also changes the formula underlying student aid and expands eligibility to more low-income students. I promised.

However, this update has been marred by delays and technical glitches.

Typically, this form would be available to fill out in October, but the Department of Education didn't have it ready until late December. Even at that point, officials weren't ready to start processing and sending forms to states and universities, which only began this month.

Along the way, the department is scrambling to fix numerous bugs. In its early stages, this process did not adequately account for inflation. Another glitch made it impossible for parents to fill out forms if they didn't have a Social Security number. This meant that many students who were U.S. citizens or permanent residents but did not have parents could not apply.

The department says those issues have been resolved and it is now expediting the processing and distribution of millions of student applications to universities and states. The agency announced that it had processed 1.5 million of the approximately 6 million applications it had received so far.

The department said in a statement that it “will continue to provide a large volume of records” over the coming weeks. “Our focus remains on supporting students and families through this process and helping colleges submit offers of aid as quickly as possible.”

Associated Press education coverage receives funding from private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Learn about AP's criteria for working with philanthropy, a list of supporters, and funded areas at AP.org.