Latest Update on Student Access and Delivery of FSA

Overview
Ad part of CSPEN’s efforts to provide timely information on key issues important to our students, your institutions, et. al. Please find reprinted below important information related to the current challenges related to the determination and delivery of FSA funds to students.

Department’s Email Announcement
Dear Colleague:

ED has posted a new electronic announcement providing additional details on what to expect regarding the delivery of 2024-25 FAFSA Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) to institutions, state higher education agencies, and scholarship organizations as we prepare to begin processing forms in the first half of March. This update also provides resources for institutions and vendors that need support as they prepare to receive ISIRs and package financial aid offers for students in the coming weeks.

The EA has many more details on what to expect over the next few weeks, but here are some highlights:

  • As we are preparing the system, the Department will initiate a planned pause to StudentAid.gov for a number of hours to prepare our systems. Once the Department reopens the site, additional work will be required to test our systems prior to ISIR delivery.
  • In the days following, the Department will start transmitting very small batches of ISIRs (1-2) to a few dozen schools identified on the first submitted applications as part of the process to test ISIR delivery. During this testing phase, the Department will get feedback from that small subset of schools to identify any technical issues or changes that need to be made before starting to ramp up ISIR delivery to a broader set of institutions.
  • Once the testing phase concludes, the Department will gradually ramp up delivery. During this period, some institutions may receive no ISIRs or as little as one ISIR each day depending on the schools identified by the applicant. Some institutions may receive multiple batches of ISIRs per day.
  • Once we have ramped up delivery, we anticipate it will take about two additional weeks to process all applications that have already been submitted. This is consistent with the timeline we announced on January 30. The Department will provide regular updates on our progress towards completing processing of submitted FAFSA applications on the Knowledge Center. Once processing has begun, new applications submitted while we are processing completed applications will be added to the end of the queue.
  • When the Congressional appropriations process has completed and determined the 2024-25 Maximum Federal Pell Grant award amount, ISIRs will be reprocessed to reflect any update.

Best,

Kaitlyn Vitez (she/her)
Higher Education Liaison
Office of Communications and Outreach
U.S. Department of Education
(202) 550-7359