The Education Department and its Office of Federal Student Aid typically hold a conference the first week of December each year.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Caiaimage/Chris Ryan/iStock/Getty Images
Each year during the first week of December, the Department of Education has historically hosted the Federal Student Aid Training Conference to provide university administrators with updated education on regulations and technical systems. That hasn’t happened this year.
Now, many financial aid experts are expressing their frustrations on social media, attributing the lapse to the Trump administration’s major reductions in force and calling it a shortsighted mistake.
“There is no conference. That’s what happens when you fire many of the staff who organized and conducted the training,” Byron Scott, a retired FSA staff member, wrote on LinkedIn. “Perhaps in ‘returning’ this Department of Education function to the states—where [it] never was—the Department forgot to tell the states about this new responsibility.”
Department officials have neither announced the event’s cancellation nor clarified whether and when it might take place. The conference website, where logistical information is traditionally posted, only says, “Information coming soon.”
One senior department official who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on the condition of anonymity said the conference is slated to occur in person in March.
“The announcement was queued up but the shutdown got in the way,” the source wrote in a text message. “I think the plan [will be released] in the coming days.”
An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the March date but blamed any delay on the government shutdown.
“The Democrats shut down the government for 43 days, and as you can imagine, planning a conference is not an exempted activity,” the spokesperson said. “We’ll have more updates on this in the coming weeks.”
If the conference is eventually held in person, it would be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020.
The senior department official said they hope that “returning the conference to in-person will make the wait worth it.”
But Heidi Kovalick, director of financial aid at Rowan University, responded to Scott’s LinkedIn post saying that right now is “a critical time.”
Financial aid officers have a lot to adapt to; the One Big Beautiful Bill Act mandated major changes to the student loan system, and the department issued regulations outlining new standards for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, among other significant shifts since Trump took office.
“Fin[ancial] aid administrators really need to hear from the experts,” Kovalick wrote. “Of course as others have mentioned, [it’s] kind of hard when they have been forced out. We miss you all.”
Regardless of whether staffing shortages or the government shutdown played a role in the delay, Melanie Storey, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said one of her greatest concerns is the tight timeline financial aid officers will face if the department does reschedule the conference for spring.
“Truthfully, March is pretty soon—three months away. Institutional budgets are tight. People are going to have to book flights and hotels, and you know that that can be expensive,” she said. Still, the NASFAA president applauded the department for its effort to return the conference to an in-person event.
“The last few were virtual, which had mixed reviews. The sessions had to be prerecorded. They weren’t always as timely. And there wasn’t an opportunity for interaction. But those are all the things that financial aid professionals prioritize,” she said. “If March is when they can do it, well, we’ll be happy to see it in March.”