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Families and students will have to wait even longer for financial aid offers from colleges and universities.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced yet another delay in the already-turbulent FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) timeline: The department says it won’t be sending students’ FAFSA data to schools until the first half of March. Previously, it had said it would start sending that data in late January.

For more than 17 million students, the FAFSA is the key to unlocking government dollars to help cover the cost of college, including federal student loans, work-study and Pell Grants for low-income students.

This new, four-to-six-week delay puts schools in a difficult bind as colleges can’t determine what financial aid students should get until they receive the government’s FAFSA data.

There is some good news: One big reason for the delay is that the department is fixing a $1.8 billion mistake in the FAFSA that could have especially hurt lower-income students. Proceeding without a fix would have, at best, confused many lower-income borrowers. At worst, it would have taken money out of their pockets and likely discouraged some from enrolling in college.

When that fix was announced, Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), said it was “the right thing to do.”

Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement Tuesday, “Updating our calculations will help students qualify for as much financial aid as possible. Thank you to the financial aid advisers, college counselors, and many others helping us put students first.”

Kvaal and the department know this delay will hit college financial aid offices especially hard and further compress their timeline for sending out financial aid offers. Draeger tells NPR that if schools don’t receive FAFSA data until early to mid-March, many of them likely won’t be able to send financial aid offers to students until April. For many of those students, that leaves less than a month before they’re expected to commit to a college.

Charles Conn, a top aid administrator at Cal Poly Pomona, tells NPR he is “relieved” the Education Department is fixing that $1.8 billion mistake, but “our hearts sank as we learned that schools will now not begin receiving FAFSA data until the first part of March, at the earliest.”

“It’s going to be difficult to get aid offers out to prospective students before April,” says Brad Barnett, the financial aid director at James Madison University in Virginia. “It’s unfortunate that these delays could impact whether a prospective student goes to college at all this fall, or at the very least where they go.”

The problem for schools — which, by extension, is now a problem for families too — is that, because this year’s FAFSA is the result of a massive overhaul, financial aid offices aren’t entirely sure what to expect from the data they’ll be receiving. Ideally, they’d like several weeks to understand the new datasets and do some quality control of the new financial aid process.

“Schools are furiously reworking their timelines to see just how quickly they could turn around financial aid offers for students, to get them accurate aid offers as soon as possible,” says Draeger of NASFAA. But he points out, “This could be more difficult for under-resourced institutions that lack the funding, staffing, or technology capabilities of their peers.”

This new setback gives schools very little room for error.

Scott Skaro, the financial aid director at United Tribes Technical College, in North Dakota, says this new FAFSA timeline will be tough on tribal colleges, where more than 80% of students are low income and qualify for a federal Pell Grant.

“This is pretty devastating news,” says Skaro.

It’s good, he says, that the department is acting to make sure students get all the aid they’re entitled to, but not being able to make aid offers to prospective students until April or May could also do real harm.

“Our students rely on the peace of mind that comes with grant aid. And this uncertainty may lead them away from education. I don’t want the seniors of 2024 to be just a lost generation.”

He worries that the longer seniors have to wait to know if college is affordable, the harder it will be for some to resist “the temptations to just find some entry-level job and give up on additional schooling. I just worry how many there are out there.”

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Boeing released its 2023 earnings Wednesday, but the company’s CEO spent most of a call with investors talking about safety and quality.

Boeing is facing big questions about quality control after a door plug panel blew off one of its 737 Max 9 jets in midair earlier this month.

“We are not issuing financial outlook for 2024 today. Now is not the time for that,” chief executive Dave Calhoun said during an earnings call.

Instead, Calhoun focused much of the call seeking to reassure analysts — and the flying public — that the plane maker is taking the incident seriously.

“We will simply focus on every next airplane, and ensuring we meet all the standards that we have, all the standards that our regulator has and that our customers demand,” he said.

Calhoun did not offer any information about the cause of the incident on January 5th, which is still under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. No one was seriously injured, but the incident touched off another crisis for Boeing. The troubled plane maker was still working to rebuild public trust after 346 people died in two 737 Max 8 jets that crashed in 2018 and 2019.

Boeing said Wednesday it lost $30 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. That’s a better performance than the final quarter of 2022, when the company lost more than $600 million. Overall, Boeing lost $2.2 billion last year — its best result in 5 years.

But any improvement in the company’s financials has been overshadowed by the latest safety incident.

The Federal Aviation Administration is allowing Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to fly again after an inspection and maintenance. Calhoun said airlines have now returned 129 Max 9 planes to service, out of a total of 171 that were grounded by the FAA.

Earlier this week, Boeing formally withdrew its request for an exemption from federal safety rules in order to speed up certification of its new Boeing Max 7 jet to start flying. The company had been hoping to begin delivering those smaller planes to airlines this year, despite a design flaw with the Max’s engine de-icing system that could be potentially catastrophic.

Boeing wanted to use the same workaround that’s already in use on its Max 8 and Max 9 jets. Now the company says it will focus on a permanent engineering fix instead.

Calhoun told analysts on Wednesday that process is expected to take about nine months, likely pushing certification of the Max 7 back into 2025.

The FAA has also taken the unusual step of ordering production caps at Boeing’s factories. Calhoun said the company will continue producing 737s at the rate of 38 per month until the FAA agrees to lift that limit. And Calhoun told analysts that slowing down production at the behest of regulators would help the company fix problems in its factory and supply chain.

“I’m sort of glad they called out a pause. That’s an excuse to take our time, and do it right,” Calhoun said. “This is what we do, and how we get better.”

The NTSB is expected to release preliminary findings from its investigations of the Alaska Airlines incident in the coming days.

The Internal Revenue Service is piloting a new program this year that aims to help Americans file their taxes directly to the government for free.

Known as Direct File, the service will be open to certain filers in select states at the start so the IRS can test the program with a smaller group of users and make tweaks before opening it up to a larger group of taxpayers in the future.

This year’s tax season begins today, when the IRS begins accepting and processing tax returns.

Last year, the IRS began developing a free tax filing service months after receiving an influx of $80 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

The free service has gotten pushback from Republicans and TurboTax maker Intuit, which called it a “solution in search of a problem.” But the IRS has maintained that Direct File will make what can be a complex and costly endeavor simpler and free.

The IRS previously partnered with private companies to create another free tax filing program called Free File, but only about 2% of eligible taxpayers use it.

Who is eligible to use the IRS’ new tax filing service?

At the outset, only federal and state employees in certain tax situations will be eligible to participate in the Direct File pilot program, CNN reported.

Additionally, the pilot will only be open to people who lived in these states in 2023: Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

The pilot is further limited by a user’s tax situation. People who itemize their deductions, earn gig or business income, or claim certain tax credits aren’t eligible to participate right now.

The service is available in both English and Spanish.

The IRS said it’s starting with a limited number of users to follow software launch best practices and that it expects to gradually open up the program to more people and will provide updates about that process on its website.

How does Direct File work?

Direct File will be available to users on a computer, tablet or smartphone. You don’t have to download any software.

The IRS is also offering live chat support — with an option for a follow-up phone call — to people who need help using Direct File.

There’s one major caveat to the pilot program: it only helps users prepare federal tax returns.

The IRS said most states without an income tax as well as states that have the ability to develop a state-run tax filing service (or already have one) are participating in the pilot.

Users living in Arizona, California, Massachusetts and New York will be directed to a state-support tax filing tool to prepare their state returns.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A new, fast-spreading variant of COVID-19 is sweeping across the nation, making it the most widely circulating iteration of the virus in the U.S. and around the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mutation, called JN.1, is a subvariant of Omicron that was first detected by the World Health Organization in late August. At the time it appeared to be spreading slowly but as temperatures have dipped, JN.1 has spiked.

In mid-October, CDC data shows JN.1 made up about 0.1% of all COVID-19 cases around the country. As of Jan. 20, the CDC estimates that’s now up to approximately 86%.

“Most likely, if you’re getting COVID right now, you’re getting this particular variant mutation,” Eyal Oren, a director and professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at San Diego State University, told NPR.

Oren added that one of the reasons for the latest surge is that the virus continues to evolve so rapidly that “our immune systems have not been able to keep up.”

Another reason is that “not enough Americans are vaccinated,” according to the CDC. Earlier this month, only 11% of children and 21% of adults were reported to have received the updated COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, only 40% of adults age 65 and older, which are the highest risk group, have gotten the updated vaccine in the last year.

The CDC says COVID-19 vaccines can reduce severe illness and hospitalizations.

The low rates for COVD-19 vaccinations, along with those against influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), are of such great concern that the CDC issued an alert to health care workers last month. The combination of rising flu, RSV and COVID cases “could lead to more severe disease and increased healthcare capacity strain in the coming weeks,” the agency predicted.

People may be wrongly assuming that the current COVID booster won’t protect them from JN.1 or other new strains, Oren said. But the most recent vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax are all expected to help lower chances of serious illness or hospitalization from JN.1.

What are the symptoms of JN.1?

CDC data indicates that this strain is no more severe than previous iterations, and the list of symptoms remains consistent with what they have been for COVID-19 in recent years: fever, chills, coughing, muscle aches, shortness of breath, sore throat, congestion, headaches, fatigue, and losing one’s taste or smell.

Oren noted that most of the list consists of ailments that could be confused with those caused by other viruses common during winter months, including the flu, RSV or the common cold.

“That’s why it’s so important to get vaccinated and to get tested [for COVID], particularly if someone is at higher risk of severe outcomes,” he said.

How to stay safe

Oren urged all people, but especially those in high-risk categories, to take precautions by wearing masks, avoiding crowded places, and washing their hands. “And if you’re sick stay home,” he said.

The CDC reported that over the last 4 weeks, hospitalizations among all age groups increased, by 200% for influenza, 51% for COVID-19, and 60% for RSV.

The federal government offers free rapid COVID-19 tests through the mail. Four free tests can be ordered at COVIDTests.gov and will be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Over the past two years, Genuine Campbell was shocked at how rent for her two-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia just kept going up — from $1,300 a month to $1,600. She’s a single mom of four, and right as her rent was rising, her hours as a hotel valet were getting cut.

Add in utility costs plus inflation, and every month brought a wrenching decision.

“Do you want to pay the bills and then give half the rent, or do you want to try to do the whole rent and then be back on bills?” she says.

Campbell says the area isn’t even safe enough for her kids to play outside, but the rents are still way out of line with what she can make. “You have to work in, like, maybe a hospital or [as a] police officer … just to keep up with the rent,” she says.

In fact, more such households and many others also now struggle to pay rent, according to a newly released report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. It finds that in 2022, as rents spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, a record half of U.S. renters paid more than 30% of their income for rent and utilities. Nearly half of those people were severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50% of their income.

“We actually saw increases across every single income category that we look at, which sort of surprised us,” says Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate with the center and the report’s lead author.

Since 2019, the biggest jump in unaffordability was for households making $30,000 to $74,999 a year. Even among those working full time, a third of all renters were still cost-burdened.

For renters making under $30,000 — who already faced the most severe struggle to afford housing — Airgood-Obrycki “didn’t think it could possibly get that much higher.” But the report found it did nudge up, to an all-time high of 83% who are cost-burdened. She says the amount of money they have left over for all other household expenses has plummeted by nearly half, to just $310 a month.

And she says the compromises people traditionally make to get cheaper rent aren’t guaranteed these days.

“So you might not be living in as good of a neighborhood. You might be commuting farther. You might be sacrificing the quality of your school system,” Airgood-Obrycki says. “And often what we’re seeing is that even when people are attempting to make these trade-offs, they still end up paying too much for housing.”

As the Harvard report notes, U.S. homelessness rates hit a record high last year. The Biden administration and housing experts link that squarely to a severe housing shortage that has helped drive up prices.

“We simply don’t have enough homes that people can afford,” says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “And when you combine rapidly rising rent — that it just costs more per month for people to get into a place and keep a place — you get this vicious game of musical chairs.”

A cooling housing market isn’t likely to help those struggling the most

The double-digit rent hikes of the past few years are finally easing, and rents have even come down in some cities that saw the biggest jumps. A record number of apartments are also under construction, and as they come online, tight vacancy rates will loosen.

Still, prices for many people are still higher than before the pandemic, and the building boom is not likely to change that.

“What we are building is at the high end, because of the increased cost of construction and because we have a lot of demand from higher-income renters,” says Airgood-Obrycki. Most new apartments over the last decade have gone for $1,400 a month or higher, “and that’s not affordable to the majority of renters.”

At the same time, she says the market has lost millions of low-rent units for $600 a month or less. And these trends are continuing a long-term, growing gap in what people can afford. Since 2001, the Harvard report notes, median rents have risen by 21% while the median annual income for renters has risen just 2%.

The upshot is that millions more people qualify for federal housing subsidies. But those have been chronically underfunded, and the amount available has fallen further behind the need.

In Philadelphia, Campbell moved her family out of their unaffordable apartment and in with friends this month. She’s making a bit more working as a driver with Lyft, and also does people’s hair on the side.

Her plan is to stay until she gets her tax refund to help with a fresh start. She has already started looking around for a cheaper place, and hopes to find something for $1,000 or $1,100 a month.

“It’s like you’re dreaming of a fairy tale,” Campbell says. “But I’m going to try to find something that I can handle.”

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

WASHINGTON — Concerns about quality control at Boeing are mounting, as new revelations from an alleged whistleblower suggest mistakes at the company’s factory led to a fuselage panel blowing off an Alaska Airlines jet in midair earlier this month.

No one was seriously injured when the panel known as a door plug blew off at 16,000 feet. But the dramatic incident has renewed questions about Boeing’s manufacturing processes, and whether the company is prioritizing speed and profit over safety.

Now a self-described Boeing employee claims to have details about how the door plug on that Boeing 737 Max 9 was improperly installed. Those new details, which were first reported by the Seattle Times, were published in a post on an aviation website last week.

“The reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing’s own records,” wrote the whistleblower, who appears to have access to the company’s manufacturing records. “It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business.”

According to the whistleblower’s account, four bolts that are supposed to hold the door plug in place “were not installed when Boeing delivered the plane, our own records reflect this.”

Investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board have already raised the possibility that the bolts were not installed. The NTSB is still investigating the incident. If the whistleblower’s description is accurate, investigators may be able to confirm it by looking at Boeing’s records.

Boeing declined to comment on the whistleblower allegations, citing the ongoing investigation.

Those allegations came to light just as Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was visiting Capitol Hill Wednesday, where he is seeking to reassure lawmakers and the public.

“We believe in our airplanes,” Calhoun told reporters. “We have confidence in the safety of our airplanes. And that’s what all of this is about. We fully understand the gravity.”

NPR has not verified the identity of the whistleblower.

But this person’s explanation of problems in the manufacturing process that led to the door plug blowout seem credible to Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Wash.

“It definitely seemed accurate to me,” said Pierson, who now directs the non-profit Foundation for Aviation Safety. “And it doesn’t surprise me, because this is the kind of stuff that we had seen, I had seen in the past.”

“This is symptomatic of what happens when you rush production,” Pierson said. “People are put under this kind of pressure, and they’re forced to take shortcuts. And that’s where these mistakes are made.”

The Alaska Airlines incident is another major setback for Boeing, which was still working to rebuild public trust after the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

After the latest Alaska Airlines incident, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes with similar door panel configurations.

Alaska and United Airlines have canceled thousands of flights as they wait for final inspection instructions from regulators. The CEOs of both airlines criticized Boeing in separate interviews on Tuesday.

“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC News. “I am angry.”

“It’s clear to me that we received an airplane from Boeing with a faulty door,” he said.

That is exactly what the Boeing whistleblower alleges. Their post describes in detail how the door plug was removed for repairs and then replaced at the Boeing factory. The four bolts that hold the door plug in place should have been reattached, the whistleblower writes.

But they were not, the whistleblower says, because of communication problems between employees who work for Boeing and those who work for Spirit AeroSystems, the company that built the fuselage and door panel.

The whistleblower describes the safety inspection process at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton as “a rambling, shambling, disaster waiting to happen.”

Boeing’s 737 factory teams in Renton are scheduled to hold what the company is calling a “Quality Stand Down” on Thursday, allowing production to pause for a day so employees can take part in special training sessions.

But it’s clear the company will have to do more than that to rebuild its reputation.

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, met with Calhoun on Wednesday.

“I made it clear that quality engineering and a commitment to safety always have to be the top priority,” Cantwell said in a statement.

Cantwell says she plans to hold hearings to investigate the root causes of the door plug blowout.

“The American flying public and Boeing line workers deserve a culture of leadership at Boeing that puts safety ahead of profits,” she said.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.