NASFAA

08/28/2026

🎉 Congratulations to the NASFAA members who recently earned promotions, changed jobs, or announced their retirements!

Celebrate your own career developments 🚀 by completing the "Movers and Shakers" form to share the news with your colleagues: https://ow.ly/e6Nh50ZGyQ1

08/28/2026

NASFAA reported last week on an issue with how StudentAid.gov displayed the Graduated and Extended Graduated repayment plans. The Department of Education (ED) has since updated the site's display: it no longer shows a range of payments, instead displaying a single payment figure, and has corrected the accompanying explanatory text to reflect that payments start low and increase over time, consistent with how these plans actually function.

NASFAA has identified an issue with how StudentAid.gov displays the Graduated and Extended Graduated repayment plans for borrowers logged into their accounts.

The site's description says monthly payments start high and gradually decrease, and the displayed payment range also goes from high to low, both of which are the opposite of how these plans actually work. The issue does not occur when borrowers manually enter loan balances rather than logging in.

NASFAA has notified the Department of Education and will update members as more information becomes available.

08/27/2026

Penned for NASFAA by Michael J. Bennett, former associate vice president of financial assistance services at St. Petersburg College and 2007-08 NASFAA National Chair, this article discusses recent milestone anniversaries for financial aid professionals: The 60th anniversary of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

Read on for more of Michael's thoughts: https://ow.ly/TEK150ZG5fv

08/27/2026

The Department of Education (ED) is rescheduling its webinar focused on how to reduce the annual loan limits for less-than-full-time enrollment using the Schedule of Reductions (SOR) to an undetermined date in September. The webinar was originally scheduled for Wednesday, August 26.

ED wrote in a blue note to a previously-issued announcement that it will inform the financial aid community about the new date when the information becomes available.

08/26/2026

We submitted NASFAA's official response to the Department of Education's (ED) request for comments on its information collection for the Direct PLUS Loan Request for Supplemental Information.

The department has revised the form to reflect the changes to Direct PLUS Loan eligibility and loan limits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which took effect July 1, 2026.

Our comments address the form's treatment of the "limited exception" that preserves prior eligibility and loan limits for certain borrowers, including a recommendation that ED add a self-attestation checkbox and notice of consequences for inaccurate attestations.

08/26/2026

The Department of Education has started its second phase of beta testing for the 2027-28 , where any student or parent is able to request early access to complete the form.

Here's what financial aid professionals need to know about phase two: https://ow.ly/aWat50ZFJ8g

08/26/2026

NASFAA has created three new flowcharts that demonstrate the flow of the Loan Limit Exception (LLE) flag through various FSA systems:

↪ Graduate/Professional Unsub/PLUS LLE Flag
↪ Parent PLUS LLE Flag
↪ LLE Flag Process Flow Through ED Systems

It is our hope that these visual explainers will assist members in determining next steps when they encounter issues with the LLE flag that prevent them from awarding, originating, and/or disbursing correct loan amounts to borrowers based on the pre- or post-OBBBA limits they qualify for.

You can find the flowcharts in our OB3 Web Center, linked in the comments below. ⬇️

08/25/2026

Congratulations to the 5️⃣ financial aid professionals who earned their FAAC® designation this month! 🥳

Do you want to earn your certification this fall? There are still a few spots available in the Fall 2026 CFAA Exam Preparation Online Workshop: https://ow.ly/UkRn50ZFgC1

08/25/2026

The Department of Education (ED) announced last week that it corrected a technical issue that prevented its new fraud prevention evaluation results from being included in certain FAFSA transactions.

Specifically, ED states that from June 29 to July 6, a technical issue prevented fraud evaluation results for some FAFSAs, with ED correcting the issue on July 6. As a result of this issue, ED has conducted a one-time fraud evaluation on FAFSAs received during the June 29 to July 6 period, and has reprocessed those transactions under reprocessing reason code 18. ED stated it has completed the reprocessing of impacted FAFSAs on Monday, August 24.

Per FSA’s estimate, approximately 7,000 applications with indicators associated with suspected fraud will be flagged with reject 74 or 75 during this reprocessing, as applicants were not given the opportunity to complete the real-time identity verification before submission.

08/24/2026

In the August 2026 State & Regional Association Updates, we heard about upcoming conferences, recent trainings, and more from our colleagues in:

NJ Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Delaware-DC-Maryland Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Washington (WFAA)
WASFAA - Western Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators
Tennessee (TASFAA)
Massachusetts Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (MASFAA)

Read their updates: https://ow.ly/IW6r50ZEPO2