Two “bugs” in the FAFSA Processing System that resulted in incorrect Pell Grant eligibility data have been resolved.
The Department of Education announced that they unintentionally introduced two errors into the FAFSA Processing System that resulted in incorrect Pell Grant eligibility data being shared with institutions and applicants.
The issues have since been resolved and impacted records have been reprocessed. Students affected by the error will be notified soon.
The errors included the following:
- Error #1 – The Pell Grant eligibility flag was set to “null” on a subset of 2025–26 Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs). This resulted in approximately 10,000 students who qualified for the minimum Pell Grant to be flagged as ineligible for a Pell Grant. This bug was corrected in a release on September 9, 2025 and the affected records were reprocessed with a reprocessing code of “01” later that day.
- Error #2 – The Pell Grant eligibility estimate value did not calculate for students before their FAFSA was processed. While the bug was live, Pell-eligible applicants were notified that they were not eligible for a Pell Grant on the FAFSA post-submission screen and in a post-submission email. Once the FAFSA was processed, students received the correct Pell Grant eligibility on their FAFSA Submission Summary. The bug was fixed on September 11, 2025. During the week of September 29, impacted students will receive a correction email.
The Department of Education appreciates the schools and community partners that helped identify and work through these issues.
