ASLA No Longer Required for Loan Disbursement, ED Announces
By Owen Daugherty, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Friday posted guidance notifying financial aid offices that the Annual Student Loan Acknowledgment (ASLA) will not be required for loan disbursement. The announcement from the department comes before the ASLA was set to be required for the 2022-23 award year.
ED added that the requirement will not be in place for the upcoming award year or any future award years.
Schools will continue to receive information about a borrower’s ASLA completion on StudentAid.gov, but loans will not be held up prior to a student's ASLA completion.
As such, institutions should adjust borrower notifications and make system modifications to reflect that the ASLA is not required, according to the guidance.
NASFAA has urged the department to remove the ASLA completion requirement, asserting it has “the potential to add duplication, complexity, and confusion to the financial aid process where there is already too much of both.”
In a letter to ED last month, NASFAA noted that in many cases states already have existing debt letter requirements, and called on ED to make the ASLA optional.
“While effective loan disclosures should be part of any solution meant to address student loan indebtedness, requiring a single, one-size-fits-all solution to a nuanced problem is unlikely to yield the intended outcomes,” the letter concluded.
Publication Date: 1/24/2022
David S | 1/24/2022 10:17:15 AM
Put it in the Bad Idea With Good Intentions Hall of Fame.
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