HEC COUNSELING CENTER

New FAFSA

• EdNC article What you need to know about the New FAFSA
• NC FAFSA Day:  Saturday, January 27th, from 9:00a to 12:00p at HCC (Register at link.)
• Tips for dealing with some of the more common issues
• UPDATE 2/15/24:  FAFSA Issue Alerts (from the U.S. Dept. of Ed.)
• Need help? You may contact the Department of Education by chat, phone and/or email.

• Know your prospective institutions’ priority deadline, and complete as soon as possible because grant funding is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. (UNC System: March 1, except WCU March 15)
• UPDATE 3/13/24:  NACAC Enrollment Deadlines Directory

• UPDATE 1/23/24:  “In a nutshell:  The U.S. Education Department’s FAFSA math, for deciding how much aid a student should get, is wrong….The department will fix this mistake in time for the 2024-2025 award year.” (https://www.npr.org/2024/01/23/1226406495/families-colleges-remain-limbo-education-department-promises-fix-fafsa-mistake)
• UPDATE 1/30/24:  “The Department will begin transmitting batches of FAFSA information—known as the Institutional Student Information Record or ISIR—to [schools and state agencies] in the first half of March. Students will also be able to make corrections to their form starting in the first half of March.” (https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-announces-more-31-million-fafsa-forms-successfully-submitted-and-update-student-aid-index-calculation)
• UPDATE 3/25/24:  “’The FAFSA Processing System (FPS) was not including all data fields needed to correctly calculate the Student Aid Index for dependent students who reported assets,’ the department wrote in an announcement. ‘This issue resulted in inaccurate ISIRs for dependent students with assets delivered to [institutions] prior to March 21, 2024.’” (Inside Higher Ed)

New SAT

• U.S. News & World Report article:  “SAT changes include a new digital format, shorter test time and an embedded graphing calculator.”
• Spring 2024 test dates and registration deadlines