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In a reversal, the Education Department will now reprocess student aid applications that were affected by a recent calculation error and issues with incorrect tax data.
The decision, announced Thursday, will affect roughly 20 percent of the 6.6 million applications processed thus far and could further delay when affected students hear from colleges about their financial aid eligibility. The department had previously only planned to reprocess the Institutional Student Information Records, or ISIRs, when students would receive less financial aid because of the error, which was about 5 percent of the processed applications. Colleges use the ISIRs to determine aid eligibility and to package financial aid awards.
If a student would receive more aid as a result of the error, the department said earlier this week that it wouldn’t reprocess the ISIRs—a decision that confounded college administrators. They said it would force colleges to knowingly package aid offers with incorrect information and potentially lead to some students unfairly receiving financial assistance. Colleges urged the department to reprocess all affected ISIRs.
More than 80 percent of processed applications are unaffected by the tax issues, the department said earlier this week.
The department said it expects reprocessing to begin in the “first half of April.” It is still encouraging institutions to use the original ISIR in order to begin packaging aid offers, although colleges will be able to choose which ISIR to use.
