Students impacted by an issue that prevented an official SAI (Student Aid Index) from being calculated may now be eligible to receive a Title IV loan.
In a May 27, 2025 Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education (ED) announced that they are amending and extending flexibilities for late disbursements that were published in GENERAL-24-143 to all students who filed a 2024-25 FAFSA (either online or by paper form) and were impacted by a known issue that did not allow an official SAI from being calculated before the end of their enrollment.
The flexibilities only extend to issues known to ED and are described in the Technical Frequently Asked Questions and Known Issues Guide and do not extend to issues that may have come up at the school such as a financial aid management system issue or internal delays in processing FAFSA forms.
If a school receives an Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) for a student who is no longer enrolled but the Application Receipt Date was before the end of the student’s enrollment and the student would have been eligible for a Title IV disbursement, the school may still award and disburse funds if the reason for the delay is one of the known issues. Disbursements are subject to the normal late disbursement requirements found in 34 C.F.R. § 668.164(j).
Schools have the flexibility to start the 180-day late disbursement clock from the later of:
- the date the student withdrew or otherwise became ineligible for the award year, or
- the earliest Transaction Processed Date with an official SAI.
For students who filed a paper FAFSA, the school can use an alternative Application Receipt Date by obtaining documentation such as a delivery confirmation receipt from a mail service in order to use an earlier paper FAFSA form application date instead of the date processed in FPS and on the ISIR.
Some issues remain that result in rejected FAFSA records and prevent an official SAI from being calculated for some students and are caused by either reject codes that can’t be resolved due to known issues with the ED systems or an ongoing FPS bug that results in ISIRS with blank SAIs and no reject code.
The Electronic Announcement addresses the following topics in extensive detail:
- Records with reject codes that cannot be resolved
- Records with a blank SAI and no reject code
- Records with reject codes that can be resolved
Applicants and contributors who are missing information on their FAFSA and need to make a correction to resolve a rejected record are receiving emails from ED.
Schools who are experiencing issues in resolving rejected records are encouraged to contact one of the Department of Education centers as outlined in the announcement.
