Michigan universities working to process FAFSA applications after another delay

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) - Hundreds of thousands of students who applied for financial aid are dealing with delays as enrollment deadlines loom.

Northern Michigan University’s financial aid department is working hard to process FAFSA applications.

After a complete overhaul of the 40-year-old Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, a series of delays has led to frustration for students and families across the country.

Thursday, the Federal Department of Education announced another delay. Its system didn’t include all data fields to correctly calculate aid based on the assets students reported, requiring their applications to be reprocessed and resent to schools.

NMU Director of Financial Aid Mike Rotundo said the new system’s rollout has led to those delays.

“By revamping a 40-year-old system, there have been delays in implementing the FAFSA. Instead of being available Oct. 1, it was available at the very end of December, for only a couple hours for the last couple of days, then available starting in the middle of January,” Rotundo said.

Rotundo said despite the delays, the new system will be more efficient.

“In the end, this will be a much better system. It’s just trying to roll it out in a condensed timeline and then working through the errors. This has really thrown them off schedule but the whole point of the FAFSA Simplification Act was to streamline the process,” Rotundo said.

NMU’s Financial Aid Department is now working to process the backlog and said they should have financial aid notices going out soon.

“So we have just loaded in all of the FAFSA’s that have been completed since January into our system. We are now working on our awarding process and hope to have our first financial aid notices going out here a little later this month,” Rotundo said.

Rotundo also said it’s always a good idea to fill out your FAFSA as soon as possible.

TV6 reached out to Michigan Tech University to see if it sees the same delays.

In a statement, MTU’s Director of Financial Aid Alyssa Fredin said, “We understand the challenges that families have faced this year while waiting for that information, and we know that yesterday’s announcement from the Department of Education may cause further delays. Michigan Tech is committed to supporting students and families as we all await the needed information from the Department of Education to complete this process.”