FAFSA Rollout Issues Delay Financial Aid, Cause Concern Among Students and Families

The U.S. Department of Education acknowledges mistake in not adjusting for inflation, promises to fix but gives no timeline.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has been experiencing issues since its rollout, causing delays in financial aid for students.
The U.S. Department of Education launched the updated FAFSA application on Dec. 30, 2023, three months later than its usual October opening.
Technical glitches caused the FAFSA website to crash and reopen randomly, and other issues included parents not receiving access links to their child's form via email, applications not saving, slow load times, dropping signatures from the form, and being unable to correct mistakes after submitting the FAFSA.
The FAFSA Simplification Act, passed in 2020, reduced the application from 108 questions to 36, but a change in the formula for awarding aid could potentially hurt families' financial situation.
The Department of Education has acknowledged a mistake in not adjusting its formulas to account for inflation, which could impact how much in Pell Grants students qualify for, or if they'd be eligible at all. The Department has announced it will fix this mistake, but has not provided a timeline.