Last year’s FAFSA rollout caused massive disruption for college enrollment offices, students and their families. As the Department of Education prepares for another launch, the MARKETview team thought it would be helpful to reflect on the circumstances surrounding last year’s fiasco, what’s changing for this year, and how you can protect your institution against issues that may arise again.
A Condensed Timeline of Last Year’s FAFSA Disaster
- March 2023: The Office of Federal Student Aid preemptively delays the launch date of the new FAFSA to December 31st.
- December 2023: Already months late, FAFSA “soft” launches but is plagued with issues and taken offline.
- January 2024: The new FAFSA officially launches to the public. The Department of Education announces it will send ISIR data to schools in ‘early March’ after missing the original deadline.
- March: ISIR data is released to several institutions. The Department of Education announces the discovery of tax data errors affecting nearly 20% of FAFSA filers.
- April: Reprocessed ISIRs are delivered to schools impacted by calculation errors.
Altogether, these problems created numerous barriers for families trying to submit their financial information, leading some students to not attend college or take a gap year. This negatively impacted many institutions’ enrollment and financial goals and caused a huge disruption in the typical recruitment cycle.
Looking Ahead to This Year’s Rollout
As the new school year progresses, many students, parents and enrollment leaders are anxiously awaiting what the next FAFSA rollout will look like. The National College Attainment Network, along with four other associations, wrote a letter to Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona stating that they’d rather have a delayed FAFSA rollout than another broken one.
The Department of Education subsequently announced that this year’s FAFSA will launch using a new process. On Oct. 1, the FAFSA released a limited access ‘Beta’ version of the form for a small group of institutions and they’re currently expanding it to tens of thousands prior to a full rollout on Dec. 1. The goal is to iron out any technical flaws while working with a small group of volunteer students, high schools and universities before sending the final FAFSA out to the public.
How to Inoculate Your Institution From FAFSA Problems
After last year’s FAFSA meltdown, it’s important to be proactive about preparing your institution for another tumultuous rollout. MARKETview has recently introduced an innovation for our partners to shield themselves from FAFSA woes: The SAI (Student Aid Index) Estimator.
The SAI Estimator allows colleges to collect financial information from interested students with a customized questionnaire form. MARKETview does the heavy lifting, sending response data along with an accurately estimated SAI to enrollment teams daily. This helps avoid over/under awarding financial aid, giving you the confidence to package early, even without FAFSAs on file.
With the track record of last year’s FAFSA and the uncertainty surrounding this year, having a safety net like the SAI Estimator can give you the best chance of achieving your institution’s enrollment and revenue goals, regardless of what happens.
If you want to see how MARKETview can prepare your institution for continuous disruption using data you can’t access anywhere else, sign up for a live demo with our team.