FAFSA tax errors impacting local graduating seniors
DELMARVA – The school year is coming to an end and that means seniors are getting ready to graduate.
But college hopefuls are having issues with FAFSA. “About 20% of the FAFSA had issues with the IRS,” said Kory Lowe, School Counselor at Wicomico County Public Schools.
The future of some graduating seniors is now in limbo. This comes after tax information was improperly calculated by the IRS on FAFSA forms. “Our students have submitted their FASFA. They’re kind of right now, in the middle of it processing, some students have been lucky. I have gotten their FASFA processed this summer still waiting for their processing period to end,” said Lowe.
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators says the struggles are impacting data integrity, pushing applicants past deadline, and breaking trust.
“The rollout of the new FAFSA has been plagued by issues of broken trust, data integrity, and missed deadlines.
We note that the Department quickly acknowledged and investigated these data mismatch issues when they were identified by the financial aid community. But we must also emphatically reiterate that every day matters, and with hundreds of thousands of FAFSAs needing to be reprocessed, even more delays for students are coming.
Continually taking two steps forward and one giant step back is not a sustainable pathway toward getting financial aid offers out to students and families.” – Justin Draeger, CEO and President of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
In Dorchester County Public Schools, counselor LaSina Branch says the problem is impacting when students make their big decisions. “Because of the recalculation, obviously that means it’s going to put a delay in what the college financial aid offices are going to be able to prepare and send out to students and families so that they can decide which college or university they are planning to attend,” said LaSina Branch, the Supervisor of School Counseling for Dorchester County Public Schools.
Wicomico County Public Schools counselor Kory Lowe says an issue like this can be especially difficult for those navigating the college process on their own. “A first-generation college student, it’s difficult. It’s their first time going through, they might not have a guardian at home who has went through the same situation it’s tough,” said Lowe.
Branch encourages students facing financial challenges to look at all of their supporting resource options. “Both the institutional scholarships and dollars that are going to come from the college or university that they’re choosing, as well as looking at local organizations and entities that are interested in funding students’ next steps,” said Branch.
FSA noted that every day this week they will be providing information on the updates they’ve made to the issue. You can find those updates on the FAFSA news webpage.
The new priority date for Maryland is May 15th.
