Weekly Briefing: FAFSA errors and delays are shaking confidence

Frustrated with repeated errors, financial-aid officers are keeping their own tallies. ADVERTISEMENT [Weekly Briefing Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. Financial-aid officers are running out of time 📣 We’re experimenting with the Weekly Briefing’s format, highlighting three top stories. If you have suggestions or feedback, [let me know here]( or send me an email: fernanda@chronicle.com. - FAFSA delays and errors are eroding confidence. The U.S. Department of Education said it has processed more than 4.4 million Free Applications for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSAs, since the new forms went live last year. But many of the processed FAFSAs colleges received contain data discrepancies that need to be clarified before institutions can make financial-aid offers. The department has a list of “[open issues]( or problems that it has identified. Some have been resolved, but financial-aid officers are catching other errors and cataloging them for their colleagues. The sloppy rollout of the new form could have major consequences for the financial well-being of many colleges and the higher-ed prospects of many students. [Our Eric Hoover has the story](. - The latest: The U.S. Department of Education will reprocess all forms containing reported tax discrepancies, [according to a Thursday announcement](. This reverses the agency’s previous stance that it would reprocess and resend only forms with errors that could deprive applicants of federal aid. [Here’s more]( from Eric. - After a campus shooting, how does a campus move on? Ann E. Jeffers, a structural engineer and an associate professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, was a graduate student at Virginia Tech in 2007 when a shooter murdered 32 people. One tactic that eased her post-traumatic stress disorder many years later was to picture the source of her trauma, Norris Hall, the since-renovated campus space where several members of the engineering science and mechanics department lost their lives. After a shooting at Michigan State University a year ago, the university reopened Berkey Hall, where two students were killed. Not everyone agrees with the decision. [Our Kate Hidalgo Bellows explores the complicated ways that people and campuses recover from tragedy.]( - UT-Austin cuts a division and lays off former diversity staff. The University of Texas at Austin is closing its Division of Campus and Community Engagement and laying off employees who had been working in DEI-related roles, [the university announced on Tuesday](. The cuts were announced one week after state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Republican sponsor of Senate Bill 17, the legislation behind the layoffs, told public colleges that they had until May 3 to submit statements showing lawmakers how they were complying with the law’s requirements. Though the number of staff whose jobs were eliminated remains unclear, all three full-time staff members at the university’s Women’s Community Center were laid off, according to a source at the university who asked not to be identified. [Our Katherine Mangan reports](. ADVERTISEMENT NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Lagniappe - Read. A Long Island midwife falsified 12,499 immunization records of 1,452 students at 300 New York schools. [She’s still practicing](. (New York) - Listen. Molly Lewis’s music is like the soundtrack of a tropical planet. 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