330,000 FAFSAs must be reprocessed, Education Department says
Laura Spitalniak
April 2, 2024
A tax data issue affecting about 5% of submitted applications will be corrected starting in early April.
Dive Brief:
About 330,000 federal financial aid applications will need to be reprocessed following yet another data error, according to the U.S. Department of Education. This development continues a trend of glitches and technical difficulties in a tumultuous cycle with the updated Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Of the over 6.6 million FAFSAs submitted thus far, about 5% contained errors that would make students eligible for less financial aid than they are entitled to, the Education Department said Monday. The agency will begin automatically reprocessing these applications in the first half of April.
Another 10% erroneously granted applicants access to too much aid. “Where adjustments would result in less aid to students, we will not reprocess unless asked to do so by schools after exercising their professional judgment,” Richard Cordray, chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid, said in a statement Tuesday.
