By SHANNON O. WELLS

Under normal circumstances, Pitt’s Office of Admissions and Financial Aid gives prospective students and families months to decide about committing to Pitt, after they’ve received information about available financial assistance.

After problems with the revised FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) delayed the information colleges and universities nationwide need to determine financial aid, that decision-making window has notably narrowed.

“Normally we give them three to four months to make (decisions) with financial information, and now we’re asking them to make that decision with three weeks,” said Kelly Kane, Pitt’s associate vice provost for enrollment. “As a parent, as a family, I might say, ‘Let’s take a year off. You could work, you can travel, you could do something, and then we’ll reapply next year.’ “

With more than 60,000 applicants vying for about 4,800 spots in the first-year class — based on available resources in housing, dining and classroom space — Kane noted, the question comes down to “Who don’t we offer a space to?”

“I think it’s extremely unfair to the current applicants and admitted students,” she said. “I also don’t want to put next year’s applicants at a disadvantage in that same set, because now we have two classes of people, none of which did anything to deserve the current situation that they’re in. So we’re keeping an eye on it.”

Kane shared her concerns and frustrations regarding the recent FAFSA-related problems at the April 4 meeting of the University Senate’s Student Aid, Admissions and Affairs Committee. She was there along with Marc Harding, vice provost for enrollment, and Hank Crawford, executive director of financial aid, to outline the situation and address related questions.

On April 18, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) pushed back the FAFSA submission deadline to June 1 for students hoping for a Pennsylvania state grant to help pay for college.

Pitt’s Office of Admissions and Financial Aid said it received the first batch of FAFSA information files, called ISIRs (Institutional Student Information Records), on March 19. The files had “numerous technical issues” that the Department of Education and PeopleSoft had to address.

This left Pitt anticipating that fall 2024 financial aid offers would be sent out to new students the week of April 22. “Bottom line is, last year at this time, financial aid offers were on the street for the first week of February,” Harding said. “And it’s April. We just received the financial aid information, the data that we need to get into the system.”

In February, Pitt joined several schools in extending the financial aid commitment deadline for first-year students admitted for this fall from May 1 to May 15, “to help families have more time between when we get the offers out in the mail and when they have to make a decision.”

In a typical financial aid application process, Harding explained, a student fills out a FAFSA form, which is processed and sent to a school such as Pitt as an ISIR data packet.

“It’s a bucket of information that we get from the student and the family from completion of the FAFSA,” he said, noting that 17 million to 20 million FAFSA forms are filed annually. “This is a huge, huge problem. It’s estimated possibly that FAFSA completion from high school students alone is down about 20 percent to 30 percent.”

Harding estimated that Pitt has received about 40,000 ISIRs from students filling out FAFSA forms for fall 2024.

“Finally, that information has started to flow into the University. If 20 percent of that data is wrong, that’s 8,000 students with inaccurate information that have submitted FAFSA information and asked for that information be sent to Pitt. And again, you can sort of think about this nationally and the compounding nature of this. It’s a real, real serious problem.”

Responding to a question from Senate Council President Robin Kear about how other colleges and universities are reacting to the FAFSA problems, Hank Crawford said the financial aid office has seen an uptick in universities “going out with financial aid offers already. And I know there’s some local schools that have decided to do that, at great risk.”

There’s going to be a lot of schools having to “walk back” on what they originally offered because new ISIRs come in with “wildly incorrect” data, he added. “How does that look like for them? As frustrating as it is for us and the families that are looking to come here to wait until the end of April, (Pitt will) be more accurate to that. And I think it gives us a better conversation to see what we need to do to help fill that gap.”

The standard financial aid offer from different colleges, Crawford explained, is not an “apples to apples,” comparison. Some schools will automatically package a Parent PLUS loan, “making it look like the student has zero balance with the assumption the parents are gonna take a $25,000 loan,” he said. “And so it’s combatting that, educating our families on what they’re looking for, and then having those conversations on filling the gap and finding tools and ways to do it as well.”

At a recent meeting of admissions and financial aid staff, Harding said their “simple” message for each other, as well as families, in the wake of the FAFSA delays and fallout is “grace, compassion, understanding.” He urged anyone who knows a family that’s distressed and having problems to call or email an enrollment or financial aid staff member.

“Because people are stressed,” he said. “The best thing we do is listen and help do what we can to get students the resources and their families the resources needed to make a decision and hopefully be on their way.

“And I know that sounds so simplistic, but right now with everything going on on the planet and in our worlds, (with) people just trying to survive,” he added. “Please let us know if you hear anyone out there that needs help.”

As part of her report to Senate Council on April 11, Chancellor Joan Gabel acknowledged the work of the admissions and financial aid teams while mired in FAFSA-related challenges.

“We have crossed the 60,000 applications mark. So we’re really delighted by that,” she said. “This happens though, amidst what is all over the papers around the FAFSA challenges. We are in the soup — I don’t have a more elegant way to describe it — and beholden to the federal government as they release the FAFSA data.

“They are working so hard,” she said of admissions and financial aid staff. “So if you see a member from financial aid or admissions, please thank them for going above and beyond this year.

“As hard as it is on us. I can’t imagine what this is like for the students who are awaiting the news of the support that they almost certainly need and depend upon in order to matriculate and know that their education will be accessible and affordable,” Gabel added. “And we’re working very hard to get that information to them and to support them in the meantime.

Approximately 3,000 students has visited Pitt for admitted students’ days so far this year, Gabel said. Normally, the University would have received the confirmation and deposits from these first-year students “and that isn’t happening because the FAFSA information is not complete.

“We still have 6,000 students scheduled to come through and go through admitted students’ day with a still unforeseen amount of time before we will know for sure when we need to set an actual hard deadline for students to pay their deposit and commit — nationally, not just here,” she added.

“So we’ll keep you posted. And we will continue to support our potential and prospective students and our really hardworking and amazing colleagues in financial aid and admissions. So thanks again for to all of them.”

Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.

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