"The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is now available to all users and running smoothly, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Thursday. You may keep your fingers crossed, if you like," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
..."'The biggest one is the fact that students from mixed-status families are still not getting the fully simplified FAFSA experience,' said Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, known as NASFAA. 'Those families still have to manually enter their income information, like people had to do years ago, instead of transferring it directly from the Internal Revenue Service through the FAFSA. That’s really bothering us, because this is a population of students that’s especially vulnerable.'
Officials at the department have said that they are still working on a solution, but there’s no timeline for a fix.
During the 2024-25 cycle, many students from mixed-status families hit a roadblock when a glitch prevented their undocumented parents from obtaining a Federal Student Aid ID (FSA ID), which is required of all contributors to the form. The department introduced a temporary workaround, allowing such parents to bypass the cumbersome identity-validation process. That workaround — still in place for the 2025-26 cycle — enabled some families to complete the FAFSA, but others continue to encounter various problems with the form.
In a written statement on Thursday, Beth Maglione, NASFAA’s interim president and chief executive, said the department’s transparency during beta testing “exemplifies the kind of proactive disclosure our members need to effectively prepare for administering aid.” But, she added, the agency’s work is 'far from complete.'"
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Publication Date: 11/21/2024