The U.S. Department of Education acknowledged Friday that it sent hundreds of thousands of inaccurate student financial aid evaluations to colleges in recent weeks, an error it blamed on outside vendors.
Although the announcement says the issue has been resolved, the delivery of financial aid to college and high school students is likely to be further delayed.
Critics say the oversight is the latest failure in the Biden administration’s rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a college financial aid form used by millions of students each year. are doing. Congressional mandates to streamline forms are riddled with flaws and gaffes, undermining trust between colleges and the federal agencies they rely on to support financial aid to students.
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Problems with outside contractors dogged the rollout of the new form from the beginning. The federal government awarded a multi-million dollar contract to General Dynamics Information Technology Corp. in 2022 to modernize the Department of Education’s aid processing system. General Dynamics was also involved in the launch of Obamacare.
The department did not say specifically which vendors it was blaming, but large projects like this often involve multiple vendors and subcontractors. General Dynamics in particular has been a sore subject for the Education Department in recent months, with some officials at the agency that oversees the FAFSA quietly complaining that vendors aren’t taking enough responsibility for some glitches. was.
Now, many universities are scrambling to cram work that would normally take months into weeks, again under federal mandates.
Many agencies offer their own forms of financial aid, but they start with federal foundations. And it relies on the Department of Education to collect applicants’ financial information. Justin Drager, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, stressed in a statement Friday that universities can only work with valid and accurate data provided by the government.
“This is another unforced error and will likely cause additional processing delays for students,” Draeger said. “At this stage in the game, after so many delays, all the errors will add up and be felt by all students in need.” Making their post-secondary dreams a reality Based on financial aid. ”
what happened?
The Department of Education has miscalculated how much some 200,000 students can afford to pay for college, potentially giving even more financial aid to those with more funds.
The agency’s formula for calculating these numbers requires the agency to include how much students who rely on their parents’ income have in their savings and checking accounts. Other investments and cash net worth owned by the student should also be part of that calculation.
But that wasn’t the case, at least until Thursday, when the agency stopped sending inaccurate data. In a statement to USA TODAY, a Department of Education spokesperson confirmed that the oversight was a “vendor issue” and would not affect future records.
“We remain focused on supporting students and families through this process and supporting universities to submit offers of aid as quickly as possible,” the spokesperson said.
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The agency said hundreds of thousands of incorrect calculations are currently being reprocessed. In a call with university financial aid officials on Friday, officials said the department does not yet have a specific timeline for amending these applications.
They encouraged schools to send interim aid offers to affected students. However, the recommendation was not difficult for everyone to accept.
“It is not feasible or practical to submit incorrect FAFSA data and have thousands of schools perform real-time federal formula calculations and adjustments on their part,” Draeger said.
Student data slowly flows into universities
After months of waiting, student data finally started flowing to universities last week. The ministry has processed more than 1.5 million applications, a fraction of the roughly 6 million it had received by mid-March.
Alyssa Dobson, director of financial aid and scholarships at Slippery Rock University, a small public institution in Pennsylvania, said the university received some of the student data. But after Friday’s announcement, certain applications will have to be reprocessed.
“Until then, we are in a holding pattern,” she said.
Mr. Dobson’s school is one of dozens that have extended the deadline beyond the usual May 1st date, by which most students must choose a college. They postponed it until May 15, but administrators are currently negotiating to extend it until June.
Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for USA TODAY. He can be reached by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow @ZachSchermele on X.
