TYLER, Texas — East Texas colleges and universities are continuing to adapt after another change to federal student financial aid.
This week, the U.S Department of Education announced that colleges and universities will not be able to make corrections to financial aid forms in bulk. According to Higher Ed Drive, the decision reverses the DOE's June announcement allowing institutional batch corrections to Free Application for Federal Student Aid forms, which is commonly known as FAFSA, would be available by the first half of August.
The news organization, which focuses on higher education issues, said the change will create an increased workload for college administrators and extends the series of struggles related to the new form's FAFSA.
In a statement, David Barron, UT Tyler vice president of enrollment management, said their staff has been proactive in processing individual student corrections.
"So the impact will be mitigated to a smaller number of students, but students, especially at large universities, will be negatively impacted by this failure to successfully implement the 2024-2025 FAFSA process," Barron said.
Rachele Garrett, SFA Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships director, said that this latest announcement will have a significant impact on SFA's financial offices. Without batch corrections, Garrett said her office will now spend more time manually entering data into an "already slow and faulty" Department of Education software.
"SFA typically processes more than 4,000 FAFSA corrections in any given year, and we expect that number to grow with this recent announcement," Garrett said. "Any delays in financial aid would affect our neediest student populations. At a time with already reduced staffing, financial aid administrators are scrambling to find resourceful ways to help our students."
Tyler Junior College Director of Financial Aid Devon Wiggins called the latest announcement a "disappointment" adding more challenges to an unprecedented FAFSA overhaul. But the college is prepared to help students no matter the circumstances.
"However, TJC has already mobilized and has processes in place to assist our students as quickly as possible to ensure their financial aid is available when they need it," Wiggins said. "Despite these challenges, we remain committed as ever to helping our students reach their educational and professional goals.”
Students in East Texas are the ones who will be directly impacted because of these changes and say they are feeling on edge.
"It’s very frustrating. It’s really difficult especially because FAFSA was supposed to fix everything. They had a new update coming in this entire year, and all it’s done honestly especially for first generation individuals, is push it back and make it even more difficult to file to begin with," UT Tyler senior Victoria Olivares said. "Part of me almost thinks and attempts to try and figure out what types of loans would be good in my situation because I feel as though financial aid really isn’t going to hit in the beginning of the semester."