Department of Education

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Federal Student Aid announces summer 2025 Wednesday Webinars

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By Marlene Seeklander More training opportunities from the convenience of your office are coming your way. A recent announcement from Federal Student Aid (FSA) reminds schools of two upcoming Wednesday Webinars. These include: No registration is required for the webinars as each session can accommodate up to 20,000 attendees. The webinars will be hosted with Microsoft’s Town Hall […]

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Deadline for reporting foreign interests nearing

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By Marlene Seeklander U.S. Colleges that are associated with a foreign source either through ownership or other business relationships face an important deadline later this month. The Department of Education reminded institutions in a recent Electronic Announcement that the deadline for submitting disclosure reports is Thursday, July 31, 2025. Failure to comply with the reporting requirement

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EDExpress for Windows 2025-26, Release 2.0 Service Release now available

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By Marlene Seeklander EDExpress for Windows users have a new service release available for their use. In a June 27 Electronic Announcement, Federal Student Aid announced a new service release for EDExpress for Windows 2025–26, Release 2.0 in the Software and Other Tools area of the Knowledge Center. This release added the functionality for schools to report student Federal

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Financial Aid Processing Feedback Survey available

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By Marlene Seeklander If you’ve always wanted to provide feedback to the Department of Education on how the FAFSA processing system and services can be improved, you now have that opportunity. The Department of Education recently announced that they are gathering feedback from financial aid administrators and state agencies on the FAFSA processing systems and services

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More steps toward simplification planned for the 2026-27 FAFSA

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By Catherine Mueller Although many of the major stumbling blocks with the simplified FAFSA have been overcome, there have been a few remaining issues for students and parents. The Department of Education has now announced plans to fix two of those issues involving the identity verification and the contributor invite processes. Real-time identity verification – Starting

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Independence Day holiday closings

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By Marlene Seeklander The Department of Education is among the federal offices that will be closed for the Independence Day federal holiday on Friday, July 4. The June 24 Electronic Announcement states that the Federal Student Aid (FSA) processors and contact centers will be closed on July 4. All FSA websites will be operational on the holiday. The FAFSA

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Computer keyboard with FAFSA button

Improvements planned for 2026-27 FAFSA; testing to begin in August

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By Marlene Seeklander With the upcoming launch of the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, the Department of Education is now planning further steps to simplify the process. In a recent Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education shared some updates for the 2026-27 FAFSA, including two major changes: Starting August 4, the Department

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2025-26 Award Year additional COD System implementation coming soon

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By Marlene Seeklander Schools will soon see additional Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) functionality for the 2025-26 award year. The Department of Education announced that on June 29, 2025 additional COD System functionality will be implemented. The additional functionality will support the Campus-Based programs, along with the processing of Pell Grant, Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant,

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2026-27 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide now available

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By Marlene Seeklander Financial aid professionals now have access to financial aid eligibility calculations for the 2026-27 award year with the release of a new guide from the Department of Education. In a recent Electronic Announcement, Federal Student Aid said that the 2026–27 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide is available for download.

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