info@teshley.com January 1, 2024 Image 0 Financial Aid Paying for College

The FAFSA Soft Launch Has Not Gone Well

January 5 Update

Since we first published this post, a lot has and hasn’t changed. Read to the end of this update for important information about the weekend.

As we predicted the situation stabilized on January 2, when many parents and some students reported back to work or school.

The FAFSA office had more staff available.

The application has been available from roughly 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM (or later).

Before 01/02, the application was available for a total of three hours.

What is FAFSA Saying?

No sign of 24/7 access availability.

Reactions During the Opening Days

Needless to say, the near-total outage and major glitches did not go over well with students and their families.

Here’s a random sample of non-caustic comments made:

From someone else stuck in the waiting room.

For those who recall the early days of the Affordable Care Act, here’s something you probably thought you’d never see.

The lucky few who were able to complete the application were not supremely confident.

What Lies Ahead?

Each day is supposed to be an improvement over the last, but the new platform is still being tweaked.

Applicants are still encountering issues on the student and parent portals.

With the weekend almost here, some may plan on trying again this weekend.

For 01/06, there is a word of caution.

The IRS website will be down for maintenance for approximately six hours.

Plan your time accordingly.

That’s the end of the update.

Continue to read the original post with guidance on contacting your Congressional representatives.

We reported on the announced FAFSA soft launch in December.

A warning was given about an under-tested platform being released over a holiday weekend.

We were right.

We were wrong.

While we expected more than the usual opening day issues, we never imagined that the release would be as frustrating as it has been for students.

Rather than a full-fledged release with periodic pauses for system tweaking, the app was first released on Friday, 12/29 in the late afternoon/early evening, although the official date provided is 12/30.

Perhaps there was a soft launch of the soft launch.

Access seems to have lasted for less than half an hour.

The same thing happened the next day and the day after that.

Many financial aid seekers waited until 12/31 because they understood that to be the “official” release date.

This indicates that the pool of students trying on Friday and Saturday was significantly less than normal.

If that’s the case, why did the system get shut down or crash in less than an hour each day?

What’s Happened So Far?

Minor Success Achieved

We have heard from a small number of fortunate souls who were able to complete and submit the application and a few others who were able to save their progress.

It must be a great relief to these individuals.

They can now end their holiday weekend in relative peace.

Major Errors

The majority of people we’ve heard from report that they:

Students couldn’t access the app at all
Students started the app but couldn’t save their information
Completed the student section, but parents couldn’t enter their information
Parents entered information but couldn’t save it

What’s Next?

The office will be open and fully staffed on January 2.

This should bring some measure of improvement to access and functionality.

That’s the hope.

Take Action

There is the option of calling or emailing your Congressional representatives to report and vent.

They are probably unaware of the FAFSA status.

Perhaps if they each receive enough communication from their constituents, they will light a fire under the Department of Education to get its act together.

It’s worth a try. Things probably can’t get much worse.

Looking forward to smoother sailing ahead!