By DALLANA ESTRADA/Staff Contributor
On December 30th, the new FAFSA redesign went live for the 2024-2025 financial aid year. The U.S. Department of Education updated the Student Aid Index (SAI) formula for calculating student aid. The update confused students’ filing, created an inaccessible website, and made setbacks for universities, who now cannot receive student information until March.
RECENT UPDATES
An initiative under the Biden-Harris administration led to the changes in updating the SAI, which replaced the Expected Family Contribution (EFC). The changes take into account inflation for the recent year.
The Under Secretary of Education, James Kvaal, explained that the redesign is meant to “make it as simple and easy as possible for families to get help paying for college.” He also said that “updating our tables will help even more students get the help they need.”
The Department of Education said in a press release released on Jan. 30 that the new changes “ensure 610,000 more students from low-income backgrounds receive Federal Pell Grants. Additionally, Pell recipients will receive more aid, with nearly 1.5 million more students receiving the maximum Pell Grant.”
WHY THE DELAYS?
The recent update to the financial aid formula led to the reprocessing of FAFSA forms to reflect the accurate amounts.
However, according to the Department of Education, institutions waiting to receive students’ information will “begin transmitting batches of FAFSA information—known as the Institutional Student Information Record or ISIR—to these partners in the first half of March.”
Students face waiting until March to access or recorrect their FAFSA, and universities will also have to wait until then to prepare financial aid packages for the fall. This gives students a short timeline to decide what financial package to choose for the next financial year.
For any questions about the FAFSA, visit the One-Stop Shop at the University Center. For more information on filling out the FAFSA, visit the “How to Apply Financial Aid,” and the “7 Easy Steps to the FAFSA” pages.
