"The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday announced a long-awaited fix that it said would allow students whose parents lack a Social Security number to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which many such families have been unable to do since the online form became available late last year," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

..."On the cusp of enrollment-deposit season, some colleges are in much better shape than others, as an online poll conducted last week by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, or NASFAA, revealed. Of 669 member colleges that responded to the question, 46 percent said they had already sent aid offers to some or all accepted applicants, and 10 percent said they had begun packaging those offers and expected to start sending them out by the end of April. But 44 percent said they had not yet begun assembling aid offers.

In response to another question, just 30 percent of respondents said they had received a submitted FAFSA from at least 51 percent of their admitted first-year students.

In a written statement, Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of NASFAA, offered a mixed appraisal of the department’s announcement. 'We are pleased to see the department make forward progress on its timeline to provide accurate student FAFSA information to colleges and universities, so they can complete the work of packaging and delivering financial-aid offers to students,' he said on Tuesday. But though he expressed hope that the temporary fix would help mixed-status families, he said that, for many of them, 'the damage may have already been done, and the proposed solution still does not fully offer mixed-status families the full benefits of the simplified form.'"

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: 4/30/2024