Students can take longer to accept aid offers
State’s universities cope with FAFSA form delays
Delays in the federal government’s rollout of the FAFSA, a form universally used to estimate financial aid, is pushing colleges to extend the May 1 deadlines by which students usually must accept admissions offers and make a deposit.
The extended deadlines came after the Department of Education announced in late January that it would not notify colleges and universities about applicants’ financial aid eligibility until mid-March, at least a month later than usual.
New Jersey’s flagship university, Rutgers, announced that it was giving newly admitted students an additional month to accept its admissions offers. The new deadline is June 1, moved from the university’s annual May 1 deadline.
Montclair State University is also pushing its deadline to June 1.
Ramapo College is planning to extend its deadline, too, with an announcement expected by the end of this week.
Other colleges are considering similar changes, and those that have not postponed their deadlines are in close touch with applicants and enrolled students about the issue.
The deadline extensions were made keeping low income and first-generation students in mind, said Jonathan Koppell, president of Montclair State. Critics have said the delays in FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, will most harm the students whom the revised process was designed to benefit.
“These delays will significantly impact our students, especially those who are first-generation college students and who are from underrepresented backgrounds,” he said, noting that the new deadline will “provide fair opportunities for all.”
Princeton University is not extending its acceptance deadline, a spokesperson said. “We do not plan to change our deadline,” said Jennifer Morrill, the university’s director of media relations.
The university will use information submitted through its custom financial aid application form to grant “tentative aid packages.” Those packages “will meet full need without federal funds and will later be adjusted by replacing institutional grant money with federal funds” once the FAFSA information is available, she said.
Jean McDonald-Rash, associate vice president for enrollment management at Rutgers, said in a statement, “We know that because of federal delays in the new FAFSA forms there is a great deal of uncertainty about when financial packages will be ready.”
The university has also extended its deadline to apply for financial aid to March 15, as students and college administrators worked through the new form’s “soft launch” at the start of the new year. The soft launch saw long wait times in January when the form would be temporarily unavailable online.
The new March 15 deadline will give applicants and their families more time to apply for financial aid, the university said, while “ensuring that the university receives all data required to make financial aid awards.”
FAFSA delays
The U.S. Department of Education had already postponed its annual October release of the FAFSA after it was redesigned and updated after a 2020 law passed by Congress.
The “Better FAFSA,” as the new, overhauled form is called, is expected to benefit 1.5 million more low-income students by expanding the number of Pell Grants it makes available. These are awarded to families in the lowest income tiers used to calculate financial aid.
Universities use FAFSA information to calculate aid, but without that information from the federal government in hand until mid-March, aid decisions could be delayed, said Christopher Romano, vice president of strategic enrollment, outreach and engagement at Ramapo College.
“This is that question that’s been on every enrollment officer’s mind ever since we knew that the FAFSA was changing,” Romano said. “Up until two weeks ago, Ramapo had not considered changing its acceptance deadline, but the most recent update tells us that it’s going to take a little longer to get college financing plans out to students.”
Condensed decision period
College Financing Plans, or CFPs, contain the breakdown of a student’s financial aid from federal and state sources, and from the institution they’re admitted to.
Even if colleges receive FAFSA information by March 15, which Romano said could be a soft deadline, higher education institutions will still have to test the new data to make sure it corresponds to their systems.
“We’re really talking about too much of a condensed decision cycle and we want to make sure that families have at least two months in that decision making period,” Romano told NorthJersey.com.
Drew University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology are both “monitoring” FAFSA-related delays but have not yet moved their admissions acceptance dates, said representatives for both universities.
The New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities has not made a unified decision but member colleges are considering it, said Morganne Dudzinski, the interim executive director. “I don’t want to speak for individual institutions but they are definitely weighing heavily to make sure they are putting students first,” she said.
Seven public colleges – William Paterson University, Stockton University, Kean University, New Jersey City University, The College of New Jersey, Thomas Edison State University and Ramapo College – are member institutions.
Private colleges weigh change
The state association of private higher education institutions, of which Princeton is a member, is also considering moving acceptance deadlines, but the member schools have not made a unified decision, said David Rousseau, vice-president of the Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey.
Timely FAFSA information is imperative to estimate private, institutional aid, Rousseau said, because private aid monies are determined based on how much public aid students receive.
As for decision acceptance deadlines at highly selective universities in the Ivy League, many have not yet officially moved their dates, said Allen Koh, CEO of Cardinal Education, a Silicon Valleybased admissions consultancy.
Some, like Harvard, have said they will be flexible on an individual basis.
Ivy League colleges typically offer generous aid packages and admit a smaller pool of students that they negotiate with for final acceptances, making hard deadlines less relevant, Koh said.