Dear Colleagues;

The slew of regulatory announcements impacting higher education continued this week in Washington. Front and center was the official announcement by the Department of Education that the FAFSA for the 2024-25 academic year would not be available until December (an exact date in December has not been determined). The roughly two-month delay is caused by extensive changes Congress made to the entire student aid application and delivery system, including a complete overhaul of the need analysis system that has been in place for 30 years.

This FAFSA delay means institutions and families will have less time to know what their aid packages will look like, throwing more uncertainty into next year’s enrollment and budgeting cycle. Institutions and families already have great uncertainty around what the underlying need analyses changes will mean for them—the recent announcement just means it will take even longer to know the exact impact.

Also, this week the Department launched another rulemaking process for a series of regulations important to our sector, including accreditation, third party servicers, state authorization, and distance education among other topics. The process will be stretched out over the next several years with any regulatory change likely not going into effect until July 1, 2025.

You can read more about both actions in our first two stories below. Also in this week’s Washington Update, we cover the potential impact proposed budget cuts in the House would have on key federal student aid programs and the announcement of $36 million in grants that will be available under the Strengthening Institutions Program.