"Destiny Obioha sat in class at Brandon High for weeks staring at her cell, a headphone in one ear, waiting for someone to answer her call. Instead of eating lunch with friends, she’d head to the library and start dialing," The Tampa Bay Times reports.

... "During a congressional hearing last month, Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said roughly 1 in 5 federal aid applications were miscalculated by the Education Department. Another 1 in 5 are missing information necessary to calculate school financial aid."

"That’s 40% of applications that were 'dead in the water' just weeks before students were to make their enrollment decisions for the fall, he told members of the House education and workforce committee."

"His numbers line up with what administrators have seen at the University of South Florida, where more than a third of applications are unusable, said Billie Jo Hamilton, associate vice president of student enrollment."

... "The constant delays and buggy data have placed an unprecedented demand on school financial aid workers, said Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators."

"Normally administrators would have their federal aid applications in good shape by mid-October, Desjean said."

"'Staff are being asked to squeeze six months of work into just a few weeks,' she said. 'That’s never happened before.'"

... "This year’s application creates the potential for a maze of missteps that could lead to a rejected application, said Desjean, the policy analyst."

"At Florida State University, 1 in 5 applications were rejected due to missing or incorrect information, said spokesperson Amy Patronis. That’s on top of the 50% drop in applications the university received at this point last year."

"Statewide, the share of uncompleted applications has nearly doubled. Every year, roughly 7% of students who submitted an application never correct their rejected application. As of late April, more than 7,000 students still have unresolved errors in their applications — representing roughly 13% of submissions, according to the Times’ analysis of federal data."

"One of the most common errors this year is a missing signature, Desjean said. If a parent or student signed the form and then closed the application to come back to it later, their signature was deleted and they were not prompted to re-sign before submitting, according to the department’s database of issues."

"Desjean said she’s also concerned about the higher number of students checking a box opting out of financial aid. It’s a rarely used option designed for students whose parents are unwilling to submit their portion of the application, she said."

"'That suggests to me the question was poorly written,' Desjean said. 'Students made mistakes because of department mistakes. If the form was designed better, we wouldn’t be seeing this.'"

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: 5/9/2024