Faculties and universities planning to submit batch corrections for college kids’ federal monetary assist functions gained’t have the option to take action for this cycle, the Schooling Division introduced Tuesday.
The announcement comes just a few days earlier than schools had hoped to submit the corrections and is one more blow to establishments grappling with the challenges wrought by the division’s botched rollout of the brand new Free Software for Federal Pupil Help.
In a typical yr, establishments use batch corrections to submit modifications to hundreds of varieties directly. With out batch processing, school monetary assist directors should manually submit corrections to the division for particular person college students—a extra time-intensive course of.
The division beforehand stated that batch corrections could be obtainable within the first half of August, however now the company is reversing course, opting to prioritize the event of the FAFSA for the 2025–26 educational yr.
“We all know that this isn’t the information that you simply, our companions, have been anticipating and provides to the challenges your organizations have already been dealing with,” the division stated in its on-line replace. “We all know this determination creates further burdens for establishments which can be already experiencing a heavy workload and elevated calls for throughout this extraordinary FAFSA processing cycle.”
The division is planning to supply free technical help to assist schools and universities submit corrections. Greater than 2,800 establishments have submitted particular person corrections within the final month.
Beth Maglione, interim president of Nationwide Affiliation of Pupil Monetary Help Directors, stated in an announcement that the announcement was “past irritating.”
“Whereas we perceive that sources are finite and making certain subsequent yr’s FAFSA is totally practical is important, the federal authorities remains to be obligated to make sure this yr’s college students are capable of entry important funds,” Maglione stated. “The division’s poor planning has led to a shocking failure: some school college students may not have monetary assist {dollars} of their fingers in time to start out courses within the subsequent few weeks. And for faculties, the impression of immediately’s announcement means various further hours of labor. It’s the distinction between pushing a button versus making hundreds of keystrokes by way of administrative burden.”
