| PublicationDate: 11/15/96 Summary: 1997-98 student aid delivery system Author: ODAS - Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary - SFA November 15, 1996 Dear Colleagues: This is the third of a series of communications to members of the financial aid community on the 1997-98 student aid delivery system. At this time, I can report to you that we have distributed approximately 12.4 million 1997-98 FAFSAs: 3.4 million to high schools, and 8.1 million to postsecondary schools. We expect to reach the 16 million mark by Monday, 11/18, and we anticipate completing our initial distribution to postsecondary schools by next week. Some delays in the delivery of FAFSAs from the printer resulted in this slippage of a week or more from our earlier estimates of when we would complete our initial distribution. To illustrate the size of this job, it may interest you to know that it takes about 4.3 million pounds of paper to print the 1997-98 FAFSAs, and 82 fully loaded tractor-trailers to deliver them to our warehouse. As you can see, the more we use FAFSA Express, the more trees we can save. For your information, I have attached below the text of a letter we mailed in October to high school counselors on the 1997-98 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Thank you for your continuing cooperation and assistance in our common goal of providing access to student financial assistance and postsecondary education. Respectfully submitted, Elizabeth M. Hicks Deputy Assistant Secretary Student Financial Assistance ***TEXT OF LETTER TO HIGH SCHOOL COUNSELORS*** Dear Colleague: As we approach the time of year when both counselors and seniors begin focusing their attention on the student aid application process, I would like to thank you for your patience and support during the delays we experienced in processing federal student aid applications last March and April. I also want to report to you the improvements we have made in the student aid application process for the upcoming (1997-98) academic year. These improvements include improved distribution procedures for the 1997-98 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the establishment of additional backup forms processing capacities, if needed. We are also placing increased emphasis on applying electronically, which reduces the turnaround time for a student's application from weeks to days, and we have increased our efforts to obtain customer feedback. Many of the improvements we have made for the 1997-98 year are the direct result of thoughtful and valuable input we received from you. The improvements include: Early printing and distribution of forms. This year, we have been able to print and distribute the FAFSA at least one month earlier than we did last year. We began mailing forms to high schools on October 15, and we expect to complete our high school distribution by late October. Automatic delivery of forms. As a result of comments received from a variety of sources, including a focus group we convened on May 15 that had high school representation, we made a significant change in our high school distribution process for FAFSAs. This year, high schools will automatically receive the same quantity of FAFSAs they received last year. In mid-September, we sent an order letter to high schools explaining this, and also giving instructions on how to use our automated order system to increase or decrease your FAFSA shipment, should you want to do so. In addition--and again as a result of focus group comments--we are mailing to high schools first. When we complete the high school distribution, we will begin our distribution to postsecondary schools. Return postcard on FAFSA. We have added a postcard to the new FAFSA. A student can include the postcard in the envelope with the completed form, and the processor will date-stamp it and return it. Students will now be assured that their application was received, and will know the date it was received. Backup processing capacity. To assure that we have more than adequate processing capacity, National Computer Systems, Inc. is developing and will have available by January a major application processing site, should additional processing facilities become necessary. User-friendly electronic application software. This past winter and spring, many high school counselors were able to assist students by arranging access to school computers with modems so that students could apply electronically using the Department's FAFSA Express software. FAFSA Express cuts the turnaround time for a student's application from weeks to days. This year, applying electronically will be even easier. We have improved the 1997-98 version of our FAFSA Express software, so that it is more user- friendly. Chief among the improvements is the addition of a "save-to-diskette" function that was made as a result of user comments and focus group comments. We will be distributing promotional materials for FAFSA Express to schools in December, and in January this software will be available for downloading from the Department's world wide web site (http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/express.html). School codes on web. We have added the Department's web site address to the FAFSA so that counselors, students, and parents can more readily access our listing of school codes (these are the codes that a student enters in the last section of the FAFSA, to indicate which schools should receive the data from the application). We will, of course, continue to print and distribute (in November) the school codes in booklet form. We will distribute these booklets to high schools, libraries, and postsecondary schools. Improved SAR design. We have made improvements to the 1997-98 Student Aid Report (SAR) that will make it more user-friendly. The design is cleaner, and all the answer fields on the SAR are similar to those on the FAFSA. Regular focus groups. Every other month, we will convene focus groups consisting of financial aid administrators, counselors, and students to provide us with customer feedback on all issues related to the delivery of federal student aid. We have already conducted the first group, and we will convene the second group in December. Thank you for your partnership in ensuring student access to financial aid and postsecondary education. Sincerely, Elizabeth M. Hicks Deputy Assistant Secretary Student Financial Assistance |