FAFSA users who previously encountered an issue when attempting to report their address within the U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, should no longer encounter an issue.
In a December 4 Electronic Announcement, the Department of Education announced that on December 7 an update to adjust some users’ state and country code information was going to be made to resolve the known issue. The update aligns the state/province and country code combinations across the FAFSA form, account systems, and the FAFSA Partner Portal.
Since Federal Student Aid (FSA) automatically updated the codes, most users will not be required to take any action. Some users who have “Canada” or “Foreign Country” listed as their state of residence will be required to manually confirm their address in their StudentAid.gov account the next time they log into their account. Those users will also receive an email in late December asking them to confirm their address information.
Schools making a correction to an unrelated field in the FAFSA Partner Portal will be prompted to update the student’s address if FSA or the student has not yet updated it. If a contributor has not resolved their address information, the student will not be able to submit their application or a correction until the contributor has confirmed their address in their StudentAid.gov account. Likewise, if a student or additional contributor has confirmed their address, a contributor will not be able to make a correction until the address is confirmed.
Users reporting Puerto Rico as their state of residence previously received an error and were unable to proceed in the FAFSA form. FSA provided those users with a temporary workaround advising them to select “U.S. Minor Outlying Islands” as their country of residence when selecting Puerto Rico as their state. After the December 7 release, users will be required to select “United States” once again.
Questions about the update should be directed to the FPS Help Desk 1-800-330-5947 or by email at support@fps.ed.gov.
