Colorado students who plan to go to college this fall are facing yet another financial aid delay.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced it wouldn’t be able to send Institutional Student Information Records in batches to colleges and universities until “the first half of March,” adding more frustrations to a new Free Application for Federal Student Aid process that started three months behind.
The records, which colleges and universities use to calculate aid students can expect to receive from a school, were supposed to be sent by the end of January
For Colorado students and families, the holdup means they won’t get crucial information that helps them decide which school they can afford until weeks before the May 1 acceptance deadline — with national groups calling for schools to push that date back.
Here and nationally, who need the most financial support to get to college. National Association of Financial Aid Administrators President and CEO that schools are scrambling, especially as some families still can’t fill out the new Better FAFSA released late last month.
“These continued delays, communicated at the last minute, threaten to harm the very students and families that federal student aid is intended to help,” he said.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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