Potentially tens of thousands of students awarded a Pell Grant or other need-based federal aid for the coming school year could find it taken away because of a mistake in filling out a form.
The error primarily stems from an online form change to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, that expanded the field to enter income.
Many applicants entered a decimal point and cents that the system ignored. That led to students’ being declared eligible for aid when they are not—and ineligible when they are. Fewer than 200,000 applicants have been declared eligible when they are not, the U.S. Department of Education said.
