By WMBD-TV
CENTRAL ILLINOIS – In the past year, there were delays for students applying for financial aid. Looking ahead to the fall semester, representatives from Bradley, Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan Universities said despite the obstacles they had during the spring, most students can start the new school year without worry.
“Most of our students have now been packaged with financial aid. But the impact of delays continue to happen,” said Bridget Curl, ISU’s director of financial aid.
In 2023, when launching a simplified version of the free application for federal student aid, the federal government delayed the application launch date from Oct. 1 to late December. This created a domino effect of delays when it came to awarding students aid, then in turn, affecting their college decisions.
“We’re still seeing, nationwide, a decline in the number of percentage of the FAFSA filers,” said Angie Cooksy, Bradley’s VP for enrollment management, marketing and communications. “Which is concerning at the college level because it’s yet to be seen what the impact of this delay will have long term of whether or not those students will still engage in the college process or we will lose them all together.”
Financial aid offices have worked tirelessly throughout the summer to make sure students can receive the funds they need to continue their education.
“Every week we are getting notifications of new issues, new fixes, new work-arounds and so our staff are having to stay on top of that,” said Curl. “So, how they can figure out how who’s impacted, analyzing our data, and then conducting outreach that we do as soon as we are able to. Then we look to see how are those students impacted.”
As loose-ends are tied up for the 2024-25 academic school year, there are some concerns for the following year.
“One of the challenges, as schools and financial aid are concerned about, as they are still so much working on the 24-25 FAFSA, even today, what’s 2025-26 going to look like? Will it be on time?,” said, Scott Seibring, IWU’s director of financial aid.
As of July 30, it was announced institutions will not be able to make batch corrections. The universities are now having to manually make any necessary changes to student applications. If students are having any issues, they are to contact their respective financial aid office.
