Connect with us

Personal Finance

FAFSA rollout was ‘a stunning failure.’ How next year will compare

Published

on

FAFSA rollout bugs and blunders: Here's what you need to know

By most accounts, the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA, was disastrous from the start. Even now, some college students don’t know the status of their aid awards for the fall.

“The Department’s poor planning has led to a stunning failure: Some college students might not have financial aid dollars in their hands in time to start classes in the next few weeks,” said Beth Maglione, interim president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

To avoid the same issues going forward, the U.S. Department of Education recently announced that the launch of next year’s federal student aid application form will also be delayed.

A ‘new approach’ for the 2025-26 FAFSA

The 2025-26 FAFSA will be available to applicants on or before Dec. 1, following a phased rollout starting on Oct. 1 to “identify and resolve the kind of system errors that can derail millions of students,” the Education Department said. (Typically, students have access to the coming academic year’s form in October.)

“Following a challenging 2024-25 FAFSA cycle, the Department listened carefully to the input of students, families, and higher education institutions, made substantial changes to leadership and operations at Federal Student Aid, and is taking a new approach this year that will significantly improve the FAFSA experience,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. 

More from Personal Finance:
The best private and public colleges for financial aid
Harvard is back on top as the ultimate ‘dream’ school
More of the nation’s top colleges roll out no-loan policies

Higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz said he is skeptical that the department will be able to address all of the challenges that have plagued this year’s federal student aid application in the months ahead, not to mention next year’s form.

“Given that there are still more than two dozen unresolved issues from the 2024-25 FAFSA, it remains to be seen whether the 2024-25 FAFSA will be fully implemented by October 1 — or December 1 — let alone the 2025-26 FAFSA,” Kantrowitz said. 

“Just because the U.S. Department of Education says that it will get it done by December 1 doesn’t mean that they will get it done in time,” he added.

Families ‘are falling back on borrowing for college’

For many families, financial aid is crucial when it comes to covering college costs, which have now crept into the six figures.

The FAFSA serves as the gateway to all federal aid money, including federal student loans, work study and especially grants — which have become the most crucial kind of assistance because they typically do not need to be repaid.

In part because of issues with the new form, students are now relying on loans more, according to Sallie Mae’s recent How America Pays for College report. The share of parents taking out federal parent PLUS loans to help cover the costs of their children’s college education has also grown, other studies show.

“We’ve really seen that in times of economic hardship, [families] are falling back on borrowing for college,” said Jennifer Berg, vice president of public affairs for market research firm Ipsos, which partnered with Sallie Mae on the report.

“That’s when the FAFSA really plays a role,” Berg said.

To that end, it’s more important that the FAFSA is fully functional for next year, even if it means another delayed start, most experts say.

“The fact that we are still, to this day, dealing with the aftershocks of this year’s FAFSA rollout shows just how imperative it is that the process is thoroughly tested from end to end,” said the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ Maglione.

Although a reliable FAFSA trumps the postponement, “we acknowledge this is a difficult trade-off between functionality and the release date,” added Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network — but it’s worth it as long as the FAFSA is fully operable by December 1.

“Our students need to know they can afford college and stay on track to enroll,” Cook said.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Continue Reading

Personal Finance

House GOP tax bill calls for $30,000 ‘SALT’ deduction cap

Published

on

Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) speaks during a House Committee on Ways and Means in the Longworth House Office Building on April 30, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

House Republicans are calling for a higher limit on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, as part of President Donald Trump‘s tax and spending package.

The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax, released the full text of its portion of the bill on Monday afternoon. The SALT provision would raise the cap to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less.

However, the SALT deduction limit has been a sticking point in tax bill negotiations and the provision could still change significantly. The committee is scheduled to debate and vote on the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.    

More from Personal Finance:
Trump’s tax cuts: The key issues and who stands to benefit
Changes for Social Security beneficiaries to monitor under new agency leadership
With foreign tourists boycotting the U.S., businesses brace for falling sales

Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s a $10,000 limit on the federal deduction on state and local taxes, known as SALT, which will sunset after 2025 without action from Congress.

Currently, if you itemize tax breaks, you can’t deduct more than $10,000 in levies paid to state and local governments, including income and property taxes.

Raising the SALT cap has been a priority for certain lawmakers from high-tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. With a slim House Republican majority, those voices could impact negotiations.

While Trump enacted the $10,000 SALT cap in 2017, he reversed his position on the campaign trail last year, vowing to “get SALT back” if elected again. He has renewed calls for reform since being sworn into office.

Lawmakers have floated several updates, including a complete repeal, which seems unlikely with a tight budget and several competing priorities, experts say.

“It all has to come together in the context of the broader package,” but a higher SALT deduction limit could be possible, Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, told CNBC earlier this month.

Here’s who could be impacted.

How to claim the SALT deduction

When filing taxes, you choose the greater of the standard deduction or your itemized deductions, including SALT capped at $10,000, medical expenses above 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, charitable gifts and others.

Starting in 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the standard deduction, and it adjusts for inflation yearly. For 2025, the standard deduction is $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for married couples filing jointly.

Because of the high threshold, the vast majority of filers — roughly 90%, according to the latest IRS data — use the standard deduction and don’t benefit from itemized tax breaks.

Typically, itemized deductions increase with income, and higher earners tend to owe more in state income and property taxes, according to Watson.

Who benefits from a higher SALT limit

Generally, higher earners would benefit most from raising the SALT deduction limit, experts say.

For example, an earlier proposal, which would remove the “marriage penalty” in federal income taxes, involves increasing the cap on the SALT deduction for married couples filing jointly from $10,000 to $20,000.

That would offer almost all the tax break to households making more than $200,000 per year, according to a January analysis from the Tax Policy Center.

“If you raise the cap, the people who benefit the most are going to be upper-middle income,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Watch CNBC's full interview with Senate Majority Leader John Thune

Of course, upper-middle income looks different depending on where you live, he said.

Forty of the top 50 U.S. congressional districts impacted by the SALT limit are in California, Illinois, New Jersey or New York, a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis from before 2022 redistricting found.

If lawmakers repealed the cap completely, households making $430,000 or more would see nearly three-quarters of the benefit, according to a separate Tax Policy Center analysis from September.

Continue Reading

Personal Finance

After UK, China trade deals, tariff rate still highest since 1934: Yale

Published

on

A cargo ship moors at the container terminal berth of Lianyungang Port for loading and unloading containers in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, China, on May 9, 2025.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The tariff rate the U.S. puts on imports remains higher than any point since the 1930s, despite trade deals struck with China and the United Kingdom in recent days, according to a Yale Budget Lab report issued Monday.

The total U.S. average effective tariff rate is 17.8% — the highest since 1934 — even after accounting for these policy changes, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

That’s equivalent to an increase of 15.4 percentage points from the average effective tariff rate before Trump’s second term, the report said.

Current tariff policies in effect are expected to cost the average household $2,800 over the “short run,” according to the report. It doesn’t specify a time frame.

China and U.K. trade deals

Roger Altman: U.S.-China talks are encouraging but preliminary

Consumers will likely alter their buying

Prior to the China and U.K. trade pacts, consumers faced an overall average effective tariff rate of 28%, the highest since 1901, the Yale Budget Lab estimated in a prior analysis on April 15.

The estimated decline from that average tariff rate “is almost entirely due to the lower rates on Chinese imports — the US-UK trade deal has minimal effects on average tariff rates,” its most recent report said.

Businesses and consumers are likely to change their purchase behavior to avoid the higher costs associated with tariffs, especially from China, according to economists.

After accounting for these substitution effects, the average effective tariff rate would be 16.4%, the highest since 1937, the Yale Budget Lab estimates.

The timing of that substitution is “highly uncertain,” it said.

“Some shifts are likely to happen quickly — within days or weeks — while others may take longer,” according to the report.

Continue Reading

Personal Finance

Fidelity technical issues kept some investors out of their accounts

Published

on

A Fidelity Investments branch.

Nicholas Pfosi | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Limited ability to trade in a big market day

The brokerage’s login issue may have been a greater problem for day traders, institutional investors and options investors, or investors who want to buy at a certain price before the market jumps, said certified financial planner Lazetta Rainey Braxton, the founder and managing principal of The Real Wealth Coterie.

Final Trades: Citigroup, Truist Financial and Amazon

Not having access to their brokerage accounts during big market swings can hurt their strategies because they are actively managing their portfolios, said Braxton, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.

But for long-haul investors, a login glitch that lasts a few hours might not make a huge difference, she said.

“Most investors are not chasing the market,” Braxton said.

‘Remain calm’

Technical issues at brokerages have happened in the past. In August, customers of Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments were unable to trade in the middle of a steep market sell-off of global equities.

If a blip like this happens again, “it is important for investors to remain calm,” said Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner and the founder of Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida. She’s also a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.

While it can be a grievance at the moment, such technical difficulties are temporary — “these outages usually don’t last long,” said CFP Cathy Curtis, the founder and CEO of Curtis Financial Planning in Oakland, California.

And besides, “tech outages will not affect the value of investments,” said Curtis, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council

Continue Reading

Trending