Students and their families must wait even longer for financial aid as the U.S. Department of Education announced yet another setback for FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) forms.
On Tuesday, January 30, the Department of Education said that it will not be sending students’ FAFSA forms to universities across the nation until the beginning of March.
This delay could severely impact students’ futures as many depend on aid to go to college and they need to know if they will receive the aid to go to college.
According to Bankrate.com, 17.8 million students fill out a FAFSA each year. That’s how many students this delay will affect.
This setback also puts colleges in a difficult position as schools cannot determine how much financial aid a student would get until they see their FAFSA form.
Since schools will not start receiving FAFSA forms until March, students might not get a financial aid offer from colleges until April of this year.
The Department previously said it would start sending forms in late January but that never came to fruition.
According to the Department, this delay is the result of having to fix a $1.8 billion FAFSA mistake. The mistake was the math typically done to calculate how much aid a student would get was wrong.
The mathematical mistake would have made families of students look like they make more income than they actually do. Had the Department not fixed the mistake, students would have received less aid than they would have. It would have cost students $1.8 billion in federal aid.
The FAFSA form is normally supposed to be released in October but was delayed. But it finally opened to the public on Dec. 30. Three months later than scheduled.
Jolee Skinner is a senior broadcast journalism major at Tarleton State University.