CBS News
Glitches with new FAFSA form leave prospective college students in limbo
High school senior Jailyn James of New Jersey is a three-sport athlete with good grades and six college acceptance letters.
James will be the first in her family to attend college. But where she ends up depends on the amount of financial aid she receives from each school — offers she should already have.
“My mom will not let me commit without knowing my financial aid,” James said. “I don’t want to come out of college with a bunch of debt.”
The delays are due to the U.S. Department of Education’s overhaul of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA. The form is now shorter and simpler, but computer glitches have led to a botched rollout.
Typically, FAFSA forms are released on Oct. 1. Once submitted, the data is sent to colleges within one to three days, and it is then used to calculate financial aid.
But the updated application forms came out three months late, on Dec. 30, 2023. And schools will not receive the data until the first half of March.
The delay has forced some colleges to push their financial aid deadlines. Last week, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education announced that its 10 state universities will extend the student commitment deadline to May 15.
“Some universities are pushing, certainly, their priority deadlines for grants,” said Rachel Burns, senior policy analyst for the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. “State agencies are doing the same thing. We don’t know yet whether institutions are going to be able to change their decision deadlines.”
For James, pressure is mounting. Most of the schools she has applied to require a deposit by May 1.
“My biggest worry, I would say, is that there’s not enough time,” said her mother, Lori James, who added that her daughter would have already chosen her college if not for the FAFSA processing delay.
However, as it is, students like James can only hope the FAFSA fumble doesn’t delay their college dreams.
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CBS News
McDonald’s investing $100 million to lure customers back to the fast food giant after E. coli outbreak
McDonald’s is investing $100 million to bring customers back to stores after an outbreak of E. coli food poisoning tied to onions on the fast-food giant’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers.
The investments include $65 million that will go directly to the hardest-hit franchises, the company said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that slivered onions on the Quarter Pounders were the likely source of the E. coli. Taylor Farms in California recalled onions potentially linked to the outbreak.
The E. coli outbreak has sickened 104 people in 14 states, federal health officials said in an update on Wednesday.
At least 34 people have been hospitalized, and four developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. An 88-year-old man who resided in Grand Junction, Colorado, died, as previously reported. The illnesses began at the end of September, and the most recent onset of illness occurred as of Oct. 21, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration has said that “there does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak at McDonald’s restaurants.”
However, the outbreak hurt the company’s sales.
Quarter Pounders were removed from menus in several states in the early days of the outbreak.
In a statement Wednesday obtained by CBS News, McDonald’s said it had found an “alternate supplier” for the approximately 900 restaurants that had temporarily stopped serving Quarter Pounders with slivered onions.
“Over the past week, these restaurants resumed the sale of Quarter Pounder burgers with slivered onions,” McDonald’s said.
CBS News reached out to McDonald’s on Saturday for a statement regarding the reported investment.
Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.
Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.
Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.
More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries – Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.
Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.
The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.
