"Education experts testified before the House on Wednesday about the continuing failures of the Biden administration’s botched rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid," The Washington Examiner reports.

..."'We are in an awful place today,' Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, told the committee. 'When you have a crisis of credibility issue, schools don’t trust that more errors won’t be found, that guidance won’t change tomorrow, or that the data they have is correct.'"

..."As a result, many families are in a situation where they have an acceptance letter from a school but are unsure if they will be able to afford accepting the offer because they have no idea what kind of financial aid they might be eligible for.

That is because, Draeger explained, much of the data schools have received from the Department of Education is 'riddled with errors.' He said 20% of the data has errors and another 20% does not include the numbers needed to calculate awards, meaning '40% of the FAFSA files that schools have are not usable to calculate financial aid offers for students. And that’s on average, some schools are higher.'

'Schools are trying to figure out what to do: Not because [the Education Department] is purposefully misleading anyone, but because ED itself may not know where all of the issues lie,' he added."

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Articles included under the notable headlines section are not written by NASFAA, but rather by external sources. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

Publication Date: 4/10/2024