Posted Date:June 8, 2016
| Author: | Jeff Baker, Director, Policy Liaison and Implementation, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Changes to the Listing of Colleges on 2017-2018 ISIRs Provided to State Grant Agencies
On January 8, 2016, we posted an Electronic Announcement announcing that, beginning with the 2017-2018 FAFSA, while state grant agencies will continue to receive the listing of the colleges included on students’ FAFSAs, that listing would not be provided in the order in which the student listed the colleges, but rather in a random order. This decision stemmed from our goal to ensure that no student is disadvantaged when being considered for state student aid due to the order in which they list colleges on the FAFSA.
This Electronic Announcement informs the community that we will be delaying implementation of the randomization of the colleges until the 2018-2019 FAFSA. Therefore, 2017-2018 ISIRs sent to state grant agencies will continue to present colleges in the order that they were listed by the student on the FAFSA.
We decided to delay implementation of the randomization of colleges to ensure that our state grant agencies partners are able to focus their efforts on successfully accommodating the upcoming change to Early FAFSA and the use of prior prior year income. This delay until the 2018-2019 FAFSA will also provide additional time for state grant agencies to make any necessary systems and administrative modifications related to the randomization of college order in a way that reduces burden and increases access to financial aid for students.
In the meantime, we look forward to working with state grant agencies to ensure that: students and families can receive reliable information about their aid eligibility at different institutions earlier, as they are searching for, applying to, and selecting colleges; financial aid applications and processes are simplified for students and administrators; and robust outreach plans are in place to ensure students are aware of the earlier FAFSA availability on October 1, 2016.
We thank the community for their input and patience on this matter.