This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that colleges will no longer be able to amend scholarship applications en masse.
TYLER, Texas — East Texas colleges continue to adapt following further changes to federal financial aid for students.
This week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that colleges will no longer be able to amend scholarship applications in bulk. According to Higher Ed Drive, the decision reverses the department’s June announcement that it would begin making bulk amendments to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as FAFSA, by early August.
The news organization, which focuses on higher education issues, said the change will increase the workload for college administrators and prolong a series of hardships related to the new FAFSA form.
David Baron, UT Tyler’s vice president for enrollment management, said in a statement that school officials have been proactively handling corrections for individual students.
“Thus, while the impact will be mitigated for a small number of students, students, particularly at larger universities, will be adversely affected by a poor implementation of the FAFSA process for the 2024-2025 school year,” Baron said.
Rachel Garrett Garrett, the SFA director of financial aid and scholarships, said this latest announcement will have a significant impact on SFA’s finance office. Without a blanket fix, the office will be spending more time manually entering data into Department of Education software that is “already slow and glitchy,” Garrett said.
“SFA typically processes more than 4,000 FAFSA amendments in a typical year, and we expect that number to increase with this recent announcement,” Garrett said. “Any delays to scholarships will impact the neediest student populations, and with cuts already being made, scholarship administrators are desperately looking for effective ways to help students.”
Devon Wiggins, director of financial aid at Tyler Junior College, said the announcement is “disappointing” because it adds another challenge to the unprecedented FAFSA review, but the college stands ready to help students regardless of their circumstances.
“However, TJC has already mobilized and has processes in place to assist students as quickly as possible so they can receive financial aid when they need it,” Wiggins said. “Despite these challenges, we remain as committed as ever to helping students achieve their educational and career goals.”
East Texas students say they are directly affected by these changes and are feeling anxious.
“It’s really frustrating, especially because the FAFSA was supposed to sort everything out and there was supposed to be a new update this year and honestly, it’s just been postponed and made even harder to apply in the first place, especially for first-generation students,” said Victoria Olivarez, a senior at the University of Texas at Tyler. “Part of me is just trying to figure out and figure out what type of loan would be best for my situation because I feel like I’m not really going to get financial aid at the beginning of the semester.”
