The U.S. Education Department (ED) this week announced that institutional batch corrections will not be available for the 2024-25 FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) after initially promising they would be available by mid-August. Instead, institutions will need to submit corrections on a student-by-student basis.
This latest announcement is a major blow to financial aid offices and will significantly increase the burden on staff as colleges approach their payment deadlines.
School-initiated corrections are an essential part of the financial aid and aid packaging process. For many students, institutional corrections are required to address conflicting information, changes made in verification, and other items that prevent a student from receiving a Student Aid Index (SAI) and the college from being able to package and disburse their aid.
In other cases, institutional corrections help ensure that a student’s SAI reflects any new or relevant circumstances that could affect a student’s ability to pay, including through dependency overrides and professional judgment.
Instead of clicking a button to submit hundreds of these corrections at once, financial aid officers will now have to submit each correction manually. This will inevitably delay aid offers and cause enrollment complications for the most vulnerable students, through absolutely no fault of the college or financial aid offices.
ED has said that they are focused on ensuring that the batch corrections functionality is in place for the 2025-26 award year.
The department also announced that it will begin processing paper FAFSAs this week and expects to clear the backlog in two to three weeks. In another reversal, ED said that corrections for paper FAFSAs will not be available mid-August, as initially announced, but will instead be made available by the end of September. The announcement details new flexibilities for colleges in light of the continued delays.
