By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Tuesday gave an update via an updated electronic announcement on the availability of the correction functionality for 2024-25 paper FAFSAs, which ED initially said would be available the “first half of August.”
Initially, in June, ED said that corrections for paper FAFSAs would be available in the “first half of August,” but later in July said institutions could expect paper FAFSA corrections to be available at the “end of September.” On Tuesday, ED said that it is “diligently working” with its vendor to complete the remaining paper FAFSA correction functionality, but has encountered issues in testing. ED’s vendor needs to address these issues before the full paper FAFSA correction functionality is fully available “later this month.”
ED said that it has only received a “small number” of paper FAFSA corrections, but it recognizes the challenge it creates for affected students. ED is working on other manual workarounds to be able to process paper FAFSA corrections prior to the full functionality being available.
Additionally, ED wrote that it is experiencing a lag in processing time for paper FAFSAs, with the current processing timeline for 2024-25 paper forms being within a month from submission. ED noted it is adding resources to bring the processing time of paper FAFSAs back to 7-10 days “within the next two weeks.” ED is also aware of a “small number” of paper FAFSAs that have issues in processing and is “working to expeditiously resolve these issues.”
Publication Date: 10/3/2024
Isaac B | 10/6/2024 8:33:18 PM
No one seems to discuss the problems with the paper FAFSA, while there is a tracker for issues with the online form, there is no such tracker for paper submissions. We've heard from students about their PDF FAFSA being returned without valid reasons, often citing missing "other parent" signatures even in cases where it wasn't required (such as parents file jointly with current spouse). We've documented more than a dozen such cases, yet there’s no one at the department to address these concerns.
There should be an option for Financial Aid Administrators to submit the paper FAFSA, with the ability for students to mail in or upload the signature page. FAAs could likely handle this process more efficiently than the vendor the Department of Education currently uses.
Linda W | 10/3/2024 10:34:57 AM
A paper FAFSA has been a last resort for many students because FSA is unable to help students who want to correct mistakes they made on their online FAFSA and institutions are blocked from making updates on their behalf.
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