Ten members of the United States Congress signed an open letter to Texas universities on April 8 urging them to provide additional funds to students affected by a glitch in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form that prevented some from having their applications processed.
The FAFSA form underwent several updates this year, resulting in some glitches. The student submitting the form has to include a contributor, such as a parent or guardian. If the contributor does not have a social security number, the U.S. Department of Education cannot process the student’s form, delaying the release of their financial aid.
The group most affected by this is students from immigrant families, which make up over 30% of students enrolled in higher education in Texas in 2018, according to The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. In the letter, lawmakers wrote they worry that by the time the Department processes these students’ forms, the funds will have already been distributed to other students.
“Unless prompt and decisive action is taken, tens of thousands of Texas students face losing critical financial aid that could make the difference between whether or not they are able to attend college,” the lawmakers said in the letter.
The lawmakers urged all public Texas universities to track the amount of money these affected students received last year and ensure that amount is still available until the department fixes the issue and the students receive their Institutional Student Information Record, a document determining an individual student’s eligibility for aid.
On March 12, the department announced they partially fixed the glitch but also found two more issues affecting the same students. By then, the department already began sending the Institutional Student Information Records to universities and allocating funds to students with already-processed applications.
“It is imperative that these funds are not simply distributed on a ‘first-come, first-serve’ basis, but are distributed in a manner that does not consider SSN-impacted (records) to be ‘at the back of the line,’ lest these students be penalized for having applications timely submitted but belatedly processed through no fault of their own,” the legislators wrote.
