As indicated by the American Council on Education (ACE), the troubled rollout of revisions to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form has produced a twofold crisis for higher education. First, far fewer high school seniors than usual have applied for financial aid, which threatens to shrink the college pipeline. Second, there have been major delays in the transmission of FAFSA data from the federal government to colleges and universities. Those delays have prevented many institutions from delivering financial aid offers to admitted students in a timely manner. The U.S. Department of Education responded on April 30, 2024 by announcing changes to systems to allow applicants and contributors without a Social Security number (SSN) to access the online 2024-25 FAFSA form immediately after creating a StudentAid.gov account.
These changes should streamline the application process significantly for students who have contributors without an SSN. Students and contributors without SSNs cannot be matched with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which means that they they must continue to enter their tax information manually. Students without an SSN must verify their eligible noncitizen status through their school before they receive any federal funds. They will not have to wait, however, to have their identity validation completed before they can use their account username and password to access and complete the online 2024-25 FAFSA form.
Demographic Change And Race-Conscious Affirmative Action In Higher Education
The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce on April 30, 2024 released the report, Progress Interrupted: Evaluating a Decade of Demographic Change at Selective and Open-Access Institutions Prior to the End of Race-Conscious Affirmative Action, which demonstrates that even with race-conscious affirmative action, diversity gains made at the nation’s most selective colleges and universities were incremental at best. The document, an update to an earlier work on America’s separate and unequal colleges and universities, is a retrospective analysis of the changing demographics at both selective and open-access institutions from 2009 to 2019, a time when race/ethnicity could be considered explicitly in the college admissions process. The analysis demonstrates that even with race-conscious affirmative action, diversity gains made at the nation’s most selective institions were marginal. Achieving equitable enrollment in higher education in a post-affirmative action society will require changes at all levels of students’ educational journeys, beginning in K–12, and for selective institutions to overhaul their admissions policies. The full report can be viewed here.
Final Title IX Rule Issued By U.S. Department Of Education
April 19, 2024 was the occasion for the Department of Education to release a 1,577-page rule that amends the regulations implementing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The purpose of these changes is to achieve a better alignment of the Title IX regulatory requirements with Title IX’s nondiscrimination mandate. The amendments clarify the scope and application of Title IX and the obligations of recipients of Federal financial assistance from the Department, including elementary schools, secondary schools, postsecondary institutions, and other recipients to provide an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including through responding to incidents of sex discrimination. These final regulations, which become effective on August 1 of this year will enable all recipients to meet their obligations to comply with Title IX while providing them with appropriate discretion and flexibility to account for variations in school size, student populations, and administrative structures. The new regulations introduce significant shifts in the ways in which academic institutions address sexual harassment and assault allegations while also expanding protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students. It is expected that conservative organizations and some Republican attorneys general in the states will sue to prevent implementation of the rule.