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The new FAFSA was supposed to be easier to use. Technical glitches have made it anything but.

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Tayler Monts wasted no time filling out her financial aid form for college. The senior at KIPP High School in Camden, New Jersey, plans to be the first person in her family to pursue a higher education. She got started on the latest Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) shortly after its Dec. 30 online debut. 

But she was confused by a question on the form, phrased as a double negative, she said. “I couldn’t go back in to fix it, even though on the website it says that I should theoretically be able to edit it.” She’s tried calling the Federal Student Aid hotline for help to no avail. “The lines are busy, so I’ve never gotten through.”

The new and shorter FAFSA was supposed to be easier to use. In fact, nearly 4 million people have submitted the 2024-’25 form since it became available, according to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “And many are getting through those forms in record time,” he said Feb. 12 during a press call. For others, the opposite is true. Technical issues have prevented families from revising, completing or submitting the application. Students whose parents lack Social Security numbers are a key group of applicants unable to finish the form because of a system glitch. 

A $1.8 billion error in the formula that specifies how much aid students get also caused confusion because it didn’t account for inflation. This led to some students who qualify for financial assistance reportedly being told they did not. The Department of Education has since fixed that problem, but other hiccups remain, leading to fears that colleges won’t be able to process families’ financial data until shortly before the May 1 deadline students generally have to commit to a college. The snafus could see students choosing colleges without knowing the financial assistance they might receive or putting off college because they refuse to take that risk or have lost patience with the process entirely, experts contend.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of the Education Trust, which advocates for students, especially those of color or with low incomes, to achieve academic excellence. “It’s going to create equity issues, especially for those students who are the most dependent on financial aid, and we know that low-income students and students of color depend more on financial aid to finance their college education. If you don’t know before you have to make a deposit to an institution if you’re going to have enough aid to go, why would you do that? I’m concerned that it’s going to significantly impact the college-going decisions that students are making.”

Each year, roughly 17 million students use the FAFSA — most of whom are young women. During the 2021-’22 cycle, just over 11 million women students applied for aid using the form, compared with about 6.5 million men. Del Pilar fears that vulnerable students might decide to take a year off from college because of FAFSA difficulties, noting that many who paused their higher education when the COVID-19 pandemic began never returned. He doesn’t want to see a repeat of that trend.

Del Pilar, also a former financial aid counselor at Loyola Marymount University, said colleges can’t even begin putting a student’s financial aid award letter together until they receive the applicant’s financial data from the federal government. Colleges, he added, are desperately waiting to get that information, as are scholarship organizations such as Native Forward Scholars Fund.

“One of the main documents we use to verify [student] need is the FAFSA form,” said Angelique Albert, CEO of Native Forward, which provides scholarships to Native American students. “That will show any awards that they’ve gotten from the federal government. It will show the expected family contributions, and then it will show what is left for them to be able to go to college. So what is their unmet need to go to that particular school — we fund based on that document.”

Errors on the FAFSA or processing delays may restrict the scale of the scholarship a student receives from Native Forward, Albert said. There’s also the matter of the tremendous mental health strain put on students whose futures are often riding on these financial aid outcomes.

These students “feel a lot of anxiety,” explained Destiny Bingham, a counselor at KIPP High School in Camden with a caseload of 75 students applying for college, including Monts. “‘What’s going to happen with my future?’” Bingham said they ask.And I have those concerns, too, because I’ve been working with these students for four years now. We’ve been having these conversations for a long time, and it just looks like the students who are most in need of these resources, who are the reason that FAFSA exists, are unable to benefit from it.”

Monts, who wants to study computer engineering and enroll in a technical college, said she’s contemplating attending two schools. One is better than the other, she said, but she won’t be able to make a decision until the colleges present her with financial aid award letters based on her FAFSA.

“I want to go to the better school, but the better school is more expensive,” Monts said. “Not knowing how much FAFSA is willing to give me kind of affects that because I don’t want to be in debt for the rest of my life.”

In response to the mounting criticisms about the FAFSA rollout, Department of Education officials announced both this week and last that it is taking steps to ensure colleges obtain and process student financial data as soon as possible. Those steps include the launch of the FAFSA College Support Strategy whereby the agency is deploying federal personnel to support high-needs institutions such as tribal colleges and historically Black colleges and universities.

“We’re setting up a concierge service,” Cardona said Monday. “We’re allocating $50 million in funding for technical assistance and support, and we’re releasing tools to help institutions by February 16. We will be releasing test versions of student records so that every college can make sure their systems are ready.”

To speed up the financial aid application process, the Department of Education announced Feb. 13 that an IRS data exchange will allow it to obtain families’ income information from tax records. This will eliminate the need for families to hand over sensitive documentation that requires verification, and the move may especially benefit applicants with undocumented immigrant parents who don’t have Social Security numbers or want to avoid submitting information that would reveal their immigration status. Annually, undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $12 billion in taxes

Despite steps to make the FAFSA process “less cumbersome for families,” as Cardona said, it is unclear when other wrinkles in the rollout of the new form will be ironed out. A department spokesperson on Feb. 12 said that the agency did not receive the funding it needs from Congress to hire additional customer service personnel to walk students and their families through FAFSA snags. Additionally, a spokesperson said the department could not pinpoint when applicants whose parents don’t have Social Security numbers will be able to complete the document. The official did confirm with The 19th that students in that predicament may fill out a paper FAFSA 

“Our hope is to make the online form available to all families, including parents without Social Security numbers, in the coming weeks,” the official said. “Although the paper form is an option for families now, waiting for the online form is another alternative that could be easier for many families.”

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form for the school year from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

Since paper applications are reportedly processed after their digital counterparts, some experts say that completing the FAFSA virtually is still the best option. But simply connecting to the internet is often a challenge for Native Forward scholars, Albert said. Many live in rural communities without broadband access, so the organization makes special arrangements for them to complete their financial aid forms online.

“They’re not even able to do it from their phone because they don’t have that access,” Albert said. “We have the student emergency fund, and from that fund, we’ve paid for scholars to have gas money to travel into cities so that they could have access to the internet. That is a problem in some of our communities. I think that’s something that we need to address on a broader scale.”

Shavar Jeffries, CEO of the KIPP Foundation, which trains educators to teach in its national network of public charter schools, said that students and their families don’t have a moment to lose when it comes to the FAFSA, the newest version of which came out months later than standard. Typically, the FAFSA for the upcoming academic year is available Oct. 1. Given the delays and the rollout difficulties, Jeffries would like the government to get applicants the information they need promptly. Since many KIPP students are from economically disadvantaged communities and among the first members of their family to go to college, he doesn’t want them to face additional barriers.

“Every day that there is a delay, it definitely increases the risk that some number of young people who can attend and graduate from college won’t be able to do so,” he said.

On Feb. 12, education leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as 106 of their colleagues, urged Cardona to address the issues with the new FAFSA in a letter led by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patty Murray and Rep. Bobby Scott. Sanders chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and Scott is a ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The lawmakers asked the Education Department to clarify how it will inform the public of further delays in FAFSA processing and to provide clear timelines about its plans so families can make the best decisions about higher education for their children.

The updates to the FAFSA are expected to help an additional 610,000 students qualify for a federal Pell grant, and another 1.5 million students qualify for the maximum Pell award, the lawmakers noted. But they also pointed out that the problems with the 2024-’25 FAFSA rollout stem largely from the fact that the Department of Education didn’t receive sufficient funding to release a new form after Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 to ease the process for millions of applicants.

“The federal government wanted to make the FAFSA form more simple because it can be a bit convoluted at times — and to make it easier for families to fill out and to make it easier for higher education institutions to provide accurate, clear information to families about financial aid awards,” Jeffries said. “That was very well intended. Unfortunately, the execution of those intentions hasn’t been ideal.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-06-30 17:29:00


Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson has reopened after over 10 months of closure due to mold, asbestos, and air conditioning issues. Outgoing Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba celebrated the venue’s reopening as a significant cultural milestone. The hall closed last August and recently passed inspection after extensive remediation. About \$5 million in city and state funds were invested to bring it up to code. Some work remains, including asbestos removal from the fire curtain beam and installing a second air-conditioning chiller, so seating capacity is temporarily reduced to 800. Event bookings will start in the fall when full capacity is expected.

After more than 10 months closed due to mold, asbestos and issues with the air conditioning system, Thalia Mara Hall has officially reopened. 

Outgoing Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announced the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall during his final press conference held Monday on the arts venue’s steps. 

“Today marks what we view as a full circle moment, rejoicing in the iconic space where community has come together for decades in the city of Jackson,” Lumumba said. “Thalia Mara has always been more than a venue. It has been a gathering place for people in the city of Jackson. From its first class ballet performances to gospel concerts, Thalia Mara Hall has been the backdrop for our city’s rich cultural history.” 

Thalia Mara Hall closed last August after mold was found in parts of the building. The issues compounded from there, with malfunctioning HVAC systems and asbestos remediation. On June 6, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal’s Office announced that Thalia Mara Hall had finally passed inspection. 

“We’re not only excited to have overcome many of the challenges that led to it being shuttered for a period of time,” Lumumba said. “We are hopeful for the future of this auditorium, that it may be able to provide a more up-to-date experience for residents, inviting shows that people are able to see across the world, bringing them here to Jackson. So this is an investment in the future.”

In total, Emad Al-Turk, a city contracted engineer and owner of Al-Turk Planning, estimates that $5 million in city and state funds went into bringing Thalia Mara Hall up to code. 

The venue still has work to be completed, including reinstalling the fire curtain. The beam in which the fire curtain will be anchored has asbestos in it, so it will have to be remediated. In addition, a second air-conditioning chiller needs to be installed to properly cool the building. Until it’s installed, which could take months, Thalia Mara Hall will be operating at a lower seating capacity of about 800. 

“Primarily because of the heat,” Al-Turk said. “The air conditioning would not be sufficient to actually accommodate the 2,000 people at full capacity, but starting in the fall, that should not be a problem.”

Al-Turk said the calendar is open for the city to begin booking events, though none have been scheduled for July. 

“We’re very proud,” he said. “This took a little bit longer than what we anticipated, but we had probably seven or eight different contractors we had to coordinate with and all of them did a superb job to get us where we are today.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a straightforward report on the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, focusing on facts and statements from city officials without promoting any ideological viewpoint. The tone is neutral and positive, emphasizing the community and cultural significance of the venue while detailing the challenges overcome during renovations. The coverage centers on public investment and future prospects, without partisan framing or editorializing. While quotes from Mayor Lumumba and a city engineer highlight optimism and civic pride, the article maintains balanced, factual reporting rather than advancing a political agenda.

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Mississippi Today

‘Hurdles waiting in the shadows’: Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor

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mississippitoday.org – @ayewolfe – 2025-06-30 17:08:00


Chokwe Antar Lumumba reflected on his eight years as Jackson mayor during a final press conference outside the recently reopened Thalia Mara Hall. He praised his team and highlighted achievements like avoiding a state takeover of public schools, suing Siemens for faulty water meters, paving 144 streets, and a recent significant drop in crime. Lumumba acknowledged constant challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, water crises, a trash pickup strike, and a federal corruption indictment linked to a stalled hotel project. He confirmed he will not seek office again, returning to his private law practice as longtime state Sen. John Horhn prepares to take office.

On his last day as mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba recounted accomplishments, praised his executive team and said he has no plans to seek office again.

He spoke during a press conference outside of the city’s Thalia Mara Hall, which was recently cleared for reopening after nearly a year of remediation. The briefing, meant to give media members a peek inside the downtown theater, marked one of Lumumba’s final forays as mayor.

Longtime state Sen. John Horhn — who defeated Lumumba in the Democratic primary runoff — will be inaugurated as mayor Tuesday, but Lumumba won’t be present. Not for any contentious reason, the 42-year-old mayor noted, but because he returns to his private law practice Tuesday.

“I’ve got to work now, y’all,” Lumumba said. “I’ve got a job.”

Thalia Mara Hall’s presumptive comeback was a fitting end for Lumumba, who pledged to make Jackson the most radical city in America but instead spent much of his eight years in office parrying one emergency after another. The auditorium was built in 1968 and closed nearly 11 months ago after workers found mold caused by a faulty HVAC system – on top of broken elevators, fire safety concerns and vandalism.

“This job is a fast-pitched sport,” Lumumba said. “There’s an abundance of challenges that have to be addressed, and it seems like the moment that you’ve gotten over one hurdle, there’s another one that is waiting in the shadows.” 

Outside the theater Monday, Lumumba reflected on the high points of his leadership instead of the many crises — some seemingly self-inflicted — he faced as mayor. 

He presided over the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the rise in crime it brought, but also the one-two punch of the 2021 and 2022 water crises, exacerbated by the city’s mismanagement of its water plants, and the 18-day pause in trash pickup spurred by Lumumba’s contentious negotiations with the city council in 2023. 

Then in 2024, Lumumba was indicted alongside other city and county officials in a sweeping federal corruption probe targeting the proposed development of a hotel across from the city’s convention center, a project that has remained stalled in a 20-year saga of failed bids and political consternation. 

Slated for trial next year, Lumumba has repeatedly maintained his innocence. 

The city’s youngest mayor also brought some victories to Jackson, particularly in his first year in office. In 2017, he ended a furlough of city employees and worked with then-Gov. Phil Bryant to avoid a state takeover of Jackson Public Schools. In 2019, the city successfully sued German engineering firm Siemens and its local contractors for $89 million over botched work installing the city’s water-sewer billing infrastructure.

“I think that that was a pivotal moment to say that this city is going to hold people responsible for the work that they do,” Lumumba said. 

Lumumba had more time than any other mayor to usher in the 1% sales tax, which residents approved in 2014 to fund infrastructure improvements.

“We paved 144 streets,” he said. “There are residents that still are waiting on their roads to be repaved. And you don’t really feel it until it’s your street that gets repaved, but that is a significant undertaking.”

And under his administration, crime has fallen dramatically recently, with homicides cut by a third and shootings cut in half in the last year.

Lumumba was first elected in 2017 after defeating Tony Yarber, a business-friendly mayor who faced his own scandals as mayor. A criminal justice attorney, Lumumba said he never planned to seek office until the stunning death of his father, Chokwe Lumumba Sr., eight months into his first term as mayor in 2014.

“I can say without reservation, and unequivocally, we remember where we started. We are in a much better position than we started,” Lumumba said. 

Lumumba said he has sat down with Horhn in recent months, answered questions “as extensively as I could,” and promised to remain reachable to the new mayor.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post 'Hurdles waiting in the shadows': Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article reports on outgoing Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s reflections without overt editorializing but subtly frames his tenure within progressive contexts, emphasizing his self-described goal to make Jackson “the most radical city in America.” The piece highlights his accomplishments alongside challenges, including public crises and a federal indictment, maintaining a factual tone yet noting contentious moments like labor disputes and governance issues. While it avoids partisan rhetoric, the focus on social justice efforts, infrastructure investment, and crime reduction, as well as positive framing of Lumumba’s achievements, aligns with a center-left perspective that values progressive governance and accountability.

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Mississippi Today

Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money

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mississippitoday.org – @devnabose – 2025-06-30 15:37:00


The federal government is restoring $137 million in pandemic relief education funds to Mississippi schools, reversing a prior freeze linked to Trump-era spending cuts. Initially, states had until March 2026 to use the money, but the funds were withheld after the pandemic was declared over. After a lawsuit by Democratic-led states and injunctive orders favoring those states, the U.S. Department of Education decided to reinstate funding uniformly to all states, including Mississippi. School districts can now request access to these funds for projects such as tutoring, counseling, and construction. The litigation continues, so the funding status could change again.

The federal government is restoring $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools.

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week that it would reinstate pandemic relief funds. The decision comes less than three months after the federal government revoked billions nationwide as part of Trump administration efforts to cut government spending. 

State education agencies and school districts originally had until March 2026 to spend the money, but the federal government claimed that because the pandemic was over, they had no use for the money. 

That March 2026 deadline has been reinstated following a series of injunctive orders. 

A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the federal government in April over the decision to withhold the money. Then, a federal judge granted plaintiff states injunctive orders in the case, which meant those states could continue spending their COVID-relief dollars while other states remained restricted.

But the education department decided that wasn’t fair, wrote Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter dated June 26, so the agency was restoring the money to all states, not just the ones involved in the lawsuit. 

“The original intent of the policy announced on March 28 was to treat all states consistently with regards to safeguarding and refocusing their remaining COVID-era grant funding on students,” she wrote. “The ongoing litigation has created basic fairness and uniformity problems.”

The Mississippi Department of Education notified school districts about the decision on Friday. 

In the meantime, schools and states have been requesting exemptions for individual projects, though many from across the country have been denied

Eleven Mississippi school districts had submitted requests to use the money to fund services such as tutoring and counseling, according to records requested by Mississippi Today, though those are now void because of the federal government’s decision. 

Starting immediately, school districts can submit new requests to the state education department to draw down their federal allocation.

Mississippi Today previously reported that about 70 school districts were relying on the federal funds to pay for a range of initiatives, including construction projects, mental health services and literacy programs. 

In 2023, almost half of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, pandemic relief money allocated to schools across the country, went to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. A third went to operational and staff costs, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

Though Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said that legislative leaders might consider helping agencies that were impacted by federal funding cuts, House Speaker Jason White said Monday that he did not have an appetite for directing state funds to pandemic-era programs. 

Small school districts were already feeling the impact of the federal government’s decision to rescind the money. In May, Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board voted to terminate a contract on a school construction project funded with federal dollars. 

The litigation is ongoing, so the funding could again be rescinded.

Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the status of school districts’ pandemic relief money.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article primarily reports on the federal government’s decision to restore $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools after a temporary freeze. It presents factual information about the timeline, legal actions, and responses from various state officials without adopting a partisan tone. The piece mentions the involvement of Democratic-led states suing the federal government and notes Republican-aligned efforts to cut spending, but does so in a balanced way focused on reporting events and statements rather than promoting a political viewpoint. The language remains neutral and factual, avoiding loaded or biased framing, making it a straightforward news report with centrist bias.

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