The FAFSA Drama Continues - Part 6 (inaccuracy)

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: A technical problem with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has resulted in inaccurate estimates of some applicants’ aid eligibility, the U.S. Department of Education announced on Friday. The latest snag in a series of complications with the new form will require the department to reprocess and resend a few hundred thousand aid applications to colleges this spring, probably delaying when those students will receive financial-aid offers.

The problem, which the department said had been fixed, affected applications from dependent students who reported assets on their FAFSA, according to the announcement. Previously, the FAFSA-processing system was not including all the data fields required to correctly calculate the Student Aid Index, a number that colleges use to determine how much federal aid an applicant should receive. The department said that the problem, which affected student-aid records delivered before March 21, resulted in an inaccurate total of what a student can contribute — and thus an “SAI that was lower than expected.”

That’s important because the lower students’ SAIs are, the greater their financial need. And the greater their need is, the more federal aid — grants, loans, work-study — they’re eligible for...

Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, described the miscalculation as “another unforced error” that would probably prolong some students’ wait for aid offers...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/miscalculation-in-fafsa-formula-is-another-unforced-error.