"A federal tool that some students need to use as part of the financial aid process isn’t working — and it’s holding up their access to federal student loans and Pell grants," POLITICO Pro reported in its Morning Education newsletter.

"A weekslong outage of a key IRS system is preventing some students from receiving federal financial aid, according to groups that represent colleges and universities.

The IRS 'Get Transcript' system has been down since late December. Some students need that tool in order to provide their college with documentation of the tax information they listed on their application for federal financial aid. Without that information, they can’t receive federal student loans and Pell grants.

'This caught us all off guard,' said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. He said there was no advance warning to colleges about the outage, which arrived in the midst of a peak financial aid season for many four-year colleges and universities.

Spokespeople for the IRS and Education Department insisted the outage is not related to the partial government shutdown. They said the tool is 'unavailable due to scheduled annual maintenance' and expect it to be back up and running Jan. 14.

The outage affects students who input their own income tax information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — and who are subsequently selected for 'verification' by the Education Department. The department currently requires those students to submit their IRS tax transcript to verify their income before they are able to receive federal aid."

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

Publication Date: 1/10/2019