On Mar. 22, the U.S. Department of Education announced that a miscalculation in the formula for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid resulted in incorrect student financial information being sent to colleges and universities across the country. Despite errors from the U.S. Department of Education, the University of Central Missouri continues to expect the first round of financial aid awards to be issued to students on Apr. 17.
“This is another unforced error that will likely cause more processing delays for students,” National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators president and CEO, Justin Draeger, said in a press release. However, the Office of Student Financial Aid is expected to release financial aid award information based on the information received from the U.S. Department of Education.
“Based on that info that we’ll have [from the U.S. Department of Education] we’re going to send an award letter out and we have no reason not to trust what is sent to us. When we get a FAFSA with a valid student aid index, we’re going to award based on that,” Tony Lubbers, Director of Student Financial Aid, said. A complete overhaul of the FAFSA form has been the cause of many delays in the rollout of the 2024-2025 FAFSA that are affecting students.
“It’s just frustrating. My concern is mostly about first-generation [college students] because I am first-generation. I know what it was like last year filling out the FAFSA,” Jonathan Crispin, freshman, said. Crispin explains the delays he has experienced with submitting this year’s form.
“On my FAFSA, you have to have parent signatures before you submit, at least in my situation. I forgot to do the signature, which comes at the very end. I submitted it and the calculation came back inconclusive,” Crispin said. Typically, when students need to make corrections to the form, they can do so through the Federal Student Aid website. However, this year, the U.S. Department of Education did not grant students access to make corrections until the first half of April.
“There are ways to make college affordable, but the information has to be accessible,” Crispin said. This is the first time in decades that wide-scale changes have been made to this process.
“The last time the FAFSA has been overhauled has been 40 years. That happened 12 years before I even got into financial aid. So the FAFSA that I’ve grown up, being trained on and working in all these years has totally changed,” Lubbers said. Recent changes include a new calculation formula to determine Pell Grant eligibility for students based on the Student Aid Index. This is a change from the previous calculation formula that factored in expected family contribution and the cost of attendance for the university the student is attending.
The Office of Student Financial Aid aims to release the first round of financial aid awards on Apr. 17. The department will be awarding letters in the order in which they receive financial aid information from the U.S. Department of Education.
“Students who filed their FAFSAs first, in January, will likely be able to get their award letters first. Students who have filed their FAFSA later, like if they waited until March to do it, they’ll get their award letter later,” Lubbers said. The Office of Student Financial Aid expects regular processing of FAFSA forms for UCM students to begin in May.
“We’re keeping students’ best interests in mind. I don’t want students to think we are dragging our feet or anything like that because that is not the case,” Lubbers said.
