data, they have also begun talking to colleagues at other schools to see if they are seeing the same error rates and issues. Dupaul has used the NASFAA FAFSA Simplification page, Banner/ Ellucian updates, and Department of Education resources to sift through updates, but she said those don’t always provide real, boots-on-the- ground information. She said her pro- fessional and personal networks have been incredibly helpful — Dupaul has learned about delays and changes from colleagues long before receiv- ing official notification from the Department of Education. “Our priority is supporting students in their college decision-making pro- cess by ensuring that they know UR is committed to meeting their full demonstrated financial need, and by providing them with their net price and grant aid now. Our financial aid team is standing by to work individu- ally with any new students and par- ents who have questions. We don’t want the FAFSA delays to delay their enrollment or to take away from their celebration of admission,” she said. Melissa Brock is an editor, freelance writer, essay and college coach, and founder of College Money Tips. She spent 12 years in college admission as an admission counselor and senior associate director of admission at Central College (IA).
NACAC AND ITS MEMBERS TAKE ACTION Angel Pérez, NACAC CEO, urged the college access community in an op-ed published in The Hechinger Report to come together and mobilize to avoid losing thousands of students from the pipeline to higher education. Kristen Harris, executive director of college and career planning for New York City Public Schools, has leveraged partnerships and has allocated significant city resources to help students comple- te the FAFSA. Strategies have included: • Launching a Financial Aid Support Team, or FAST, that manages FAFSA drop-in centers in libraries, shelters, and other public spaces around the city. • Sending financial aid officers from The City University of New York to advise high schools. • Connecting its peer counselors, who are current college students, with high school students. Rachelle Feldman, vice provost of enrollment at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, on April 10 testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce about how the FAFSA rollout has delayed the university’s ability to send financial aid offers to students.
to package financial aid for admitted students to provide them with their grant and scholarship aid now, giving them the financial information they need to understand their net price long before they need to make their enrollment decision. “We don’t know what the Pell Grant is going to be, though. But using the CSS Profile, we’re confident in the data we have,” she said. However, that still means her team has to review every financial aid package twice. “We use our institutional method- ology: Here’s your institutional grant, here’s your Pell Grant, with the dollar amounts. Because we aren’t 100 per- cent confident it’s right, once we have the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR), you’ll get a second letter that will say more specifically what the grant funding is,” she said. She knows that FAFSA-only schools bear a much larger burden — they’re getting asked how much it’ll cost,
and the institutions can’t answer the question. The lack of data severely limits them. “My trust in deadlines has eroded. We were told about January, and there was a meeting with some uni- versity presidents who said mid-Feb- ruary, and then it would be in the first half of March. It went on to say it would take time for the ISIRs to roll out. My faith in deadlines is soft,” she said. While waiting for FAFSA records, the University of Richmond made contingency plans, Dupaul said. In the event that the university does not receive the records before payments are due for summer school, UR will take the necessary steps to ensure that continuing students who need federal aid for summer school are still able to enroll and attend. The univer- sity used the CSS Profile to help make decisions about each award pack- age. Now that her team has received the information and can process the
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