ED Releases More Details on List of Unaffected FAFSA Records
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Wednesday provided more details on the list it plans to send to institutions of FAFSA records that are unaffected by any known errors.
ED previously released information on three issues it identified concerning inaccurate tax data provided on Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) via an electronic announcement (EA) published on Monday. As a result of those issues, ED is planning to reprocess 5% of previously submitted FAFSAs because the errors would result in decreased financial aid eligibility for students if unresolved. While the total number of impacted records represents about 20% of FAFSAs filed, ED does not currently have plans to reprocess those applications where the errors are in the student’s favor.
The department plans to reprocess the 5% of FAFSAs with artificially high SAIs as soon as the functionality is available in the first half of April. For FAFSAs with incorrect information that ED won’t automatically reprocess, aid offices may use their professional judgment and request that ED reprocess any one or more of these FAFSAs on a case-by-case basis, but ED will assume schools intend to proceed with the incorrect data. More information on this process will be available in the coming weeks, according to ED.
Along with details on those tax data issues, ED announced it will release “as soon as possible” a list of Universally Unique Identification Numbers (UUIDs) corresponding to the FAFSAs that it does not intend to automatically reprocess because they are unaffected by any identified issue. In Wednesday’s announcement, ED said institutions and state agencies may reference the UUIDs list to identify the students they have accurate information on in order to make aid calculations and offers.
ED announced in an EA update late on Wednesday that it will also release a second list, this one including ISIRs that are affected by the inaccurate tax data issues. ED has not provided an exact date those lists will be available but has said they would be out “in the coming days.”
ED staff demonstrated in a webinar on Wednesday the open-source tool mentioned in the April 3 EA that institutions can use to search by FAFSA UUID to determine if a FAFSA record appears on either list. The webinar was recorded and will be posted on the FSA Training Center.
The department will send the UUIDs list information through two emails to all Destination Point Administrators (DPAs) who currently manage the ISIR service at their institution or organization – meaning the owners of the SAIG mailboxes that receive ISIRs. The first email DPAs will receive is a decryption key, which is a password. The second email will be an encrypted CSV file of the 2024-25 FAFSA records without any currently known issues. Both emails will come from [email protected], according to ED.
Stay tuned to Today’s News and the “Off the Cuff” podcast for more information on these tax data issues.
Publication Date: 4/4/2024
Diana S | 4/4/2024 3:17:51 PM
I'm concerned that the second file (ISIRs that are affected by the inaccurate tax data issues) will not specify which ISIRs will be automatically reprocessed and which will not. We need to be able to identify records the Department is choosing not to reprocess if we want to send them for reprocessing ourselves.
If this is going to be their solution, they should be sending us three files specific to our school (not all UUIDs).
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