The U.S. Department of Education announced further delays this week in the already waylaid federal college financial aid application process, straining key timelines for Georgia students trying to determine how much they’ll have to pay for school.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form typically opens Oct. 1, but didn’t launch until Dec. 30 because of an application redesign. That slow rollout prompted the Education Department to initially tell colleges not to expect data from the FAFSA until “late January.”
Now, the Education Department says it “will begin transmitting batches of FAFSA information” to colleges “in the first half of March.”
The announcement pushes back an already tight timeline that had some Georgia colleges warning students weeks ago that it could take longer than usual to send out financial aid offers. Schools use that information to create financial aid offer letters, which help applicants compare the cost of different colleges.
Georgia Tech typically processes about 30,000 financial aid applications over six months. Officials are preparing to move through that volume in a much more condensed timeline — approximately a month. The school also is gathering preliminary data through other mechanisms to provide students with “as much insight as we can despite the unexpected delays,” a statement said.
Officials at the private Berry College near Rome previously had warned students that financial aid offers that would normally begin going out in December might not go out until February at the earliest. On Tuesday, Vice President for Enrollment Management Andrew Bressette called the latest stoppage “a huge disappointment and a major setback for families and colleges.” Students deserve early financial aid information so they can pick a school “without undue last-minute pressure,” he said in a statement.
In December, Berry provided estimated financial aid packages to families that had entered their information into the Education Department’s online estimator tool. Bressette said the college is exploring ways to continue giving those estimates next month while it waits for FAFSA data.
University of Georgia officials declined to say what, if any, impact the delay will have on its financial aid office. A spokesman said UGA is “going to be as flexible as possible” to ensure students get the federal aid they’re eligible for.
Georgia Gwinnett College doesn’t expect the delay to have “a significant impact” on aid offers, which typically go out in late March. But Kimberly Jordan, executive director of financial aid services, expects it to take longer to collect documents from students who need to submit additional information to be eligible for state and federal aid.
A group of nine national college groups, including the Association of American Universities, on Wednesday called for colleges to extend the May 1 deadline by which many schools require applicants to pay a deposit to confirm their enrollment for the fall semester.
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators blasted the postponement.
“On the very day that schools were expecting FAFSA applicant information, they were instead notified by the U.S. Department of Education that they shouldn’t expect to receive that data until March, at the earliest. These continued delays, communicated at the last minute, threaten to harm the very students and families that federal student aid is intended to help,” said the association’s President Justin Draeger, in a written statement.
In its announcement acknowledging the latest delay, the Education Department mentioned work to update calculations to account for inflation, which it said will provide “an additional $1.8 billion in aid.” Draeger, in a statement last week, said that change should have been done earlier.
The Education Department boasted that more than 3.1 million students had so far submitted the FAFSA for the 2024-2025 school year.
In the first days after the online form went live in late December, it was only available in limited windows. Draeger said some students are still unable to complete it or log back in to correct mistakes. The Education Department said students will be able to make corrections to their form starting in March.
The FAFSA overhaul was required by Congress and is aimed at simplifying the form and making more low-income students eligible for federal aid.
