This school year, students across the nation may receive financial aid offers from institutions of higher education later than usual. The Department of Education changed the Federal Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in 2024, meaning institutions will receive students’ financial aid information starting in mid-March, a delay from previous years. Due to this, many institutions have chosen to push their enrollment acceptance deadlines later to allow students a fair amount of time to decide where they will attend.
The Department of Education’s main goal in updating the FAFSA was to make it an easier process for applicants and their families; a central change involved simply limiting the number of questions. According to the Office of Federal Student Aid, students may skip up to 26 questions, reducing the application time to 10 minutes.
Another change allows applicants’ “contributors” to enter their financial information into the FAFSA themselves. “Contributors” are people who have to provide their information for the FAFSA, usually spouses or parents. According to the Office of Federal Student Aid, if contributors give consent, they can have their financial information transferred automatically from the IRS to the FAFSA.
Another important change is to the formula used to calculate applicants’ eligibility for financial aid. The Office of Federal Student Aid is replacing the old formula, which based its calculations off of Expected Family Contribution (EFC), with the Student Aid Index (SAI).
The EFC method calculated how much money applicants were expected to have for higher education. Generally, EFC was subtracted from their expected cost to determine how much aid students would get.
The SAI ranges from -1,500 to 999,999. These numbers are not a dollar amount, according to the Office of Federal Student Aid. Institutions of higher education will use a student’s SAI number to determine how much aid they receive.
These changes have delayed when the Department of Education sends out applicants’ information to institutions of higher education, according to Scott Orcawez, the Associate Vice Provost of Enrollment Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Orcawez describes his role at the university as “facilitating the process of student enrolling.”
“The Department of [Education] will start sending files [to institutions] in [mid-March],” Orcawez said. He adds that the information will be “rolled out in batches to all the universities across the nation.”
UW-Madison plans to have sent aid offers to all accepted students by the middle of April, though that is only a rough estimate. To accommodate the delay, they have changed their acceptance deadline to May 15, 2024, two weeks after the usual May 1 deadline.
“That gives students and families about a month to make the decision,” Orcawez said.
The delay to acceptance may have other effects on the enrollment process. Students may face delays in selecting classes and in the orientation process. The university is working to minimize these effects.
Orcawez stated that UW-Madison is focused “ not only [on] the amount of time to make the decision on enrollment, but [asking] how we set them up for success on the backend.”
The change to how the FAFSA calculates need makes receiving financial aid packaged quickly even more important for students. Furthermore, the amount of aid students get may change from previous years.
“The new calculation will determine how much students and families will get financially. What that will look like, [enrollment officials] don’t know, because we don’t have that data yet,” Orcawez said.
The delay is not unique to UW-Madison– it is affecting every institution of higher education in the country. Orcawez and his colleagues have been watching and working with other institutions in their professional networks to help solve this problem.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s important that [UW-Madison] remains diligent, committed, and concerned about the impact that these delays have on students and families,” Orcawez said.
The changes to the FAFSA in 2024 will have an effect on all future students attending or hoping to attend institutions of higher education. The new calculations may change how much aid students receive, and delays in the process of sharing information will affect when students receive aid offers. Across the nation, institutions of higher education are working to create the best process for students and their families.
