Hello Clifton,

Time for your monthly roundup of regulatory updates, best practices, and Core system updates. Nothing like an action-packed email to keep you informed, compliant, and focused on what's important: your students.

Portico Financial Aid News

🗓️ Pell 2024-25 Closeout Deadline

Portico is completing final reconciliations and initiating closeouts of the Pell 2024-25 awards. All Pell disbursements should have been submitted for processing by the end of August. 

💲 Pell Administrative Cost Allowance

ED began releasing the 2023-24 and 2024-25 Pell ACA payments on August 20. Portico's fiscal team is ordering those funds and schools will be notified once completed so they can look out for additional deposits.

🏔️ 2025-26 Peak Processing

Peak processing season is upon us! Reminder that batch processing may take slightly longer than usual due to the increase in processing and possible delays with COD.

Department of Education Updates

• G5 Outage
  The G5 website will be unavailable to all users after 3:00 p.m. on September 30 through Wednesday, October 1, 2025. Portico will process any eligible batches prior to the shutdown where funding is available.
  

• Keep School Info Current

  ED reminds school to keep their School Contact Information current in COD by updating their ECAR and COD with any changes.

• FAFSA Reject Code 68

  ED has provided guidance on resolving FAFSA issues with reject code 68.

• 2026-27 FAFSA & Pell Eligibility Updates

  A few changes are coming for the 2026-27 FAFSA regarding reporting asset net worth and calculation of Pell Grant eligibility. See the full Electronic Announcement here.

  ED has also released a 2026-27 FAFSA Preview Presentation, available here.

• 2025-26 IRS Tax Return Transcript Matrix

  ED has published the 2025-26 Tax Transcript Matrix to be used for verification of tax return information on the 25/26 ISIR.

• Verification of Identity Reporting

  Reporting of V4 & V5 results functionality has now been added to the FAFSA Partner Portal as of 8/31/2025 beginning with the 2025-26 award year.

🚨 FA Feature Alerts 🚨

🖇️ Document Award Linking - Automated by Student Start Date

What is it:
A new feature flag allows schools to enable automated award year assignment for documents tied to new students.

Why it matters:
Automation improves accuracy, speeds up processing, and ensures students' aid is released without unnecessary delays.

✅ Batch Management - New "Check All" Option

What is it:
A "check all" option is added in batch transaction management, allowing users to quickly select all transactions in a batch.

Why it matters:

This enhancement speeds up batch assignment while still giving staff the flexibility to move individual transactions when needed.

✒️ Funding Estimate - New Signature Option

What is it:
A new setting that allows schools to require a student signature for every funding estimate, even if a student has previously signed one.

Why it matters:

This enhancement ensures schools can adopt the approach that best balances compliance requirements with administrative efficiency by choosing from multiple signature policies:

• Always required (students must sign every FE)
• Passive acceptance: after the first FE signed (only the first FE requires signature)
• Passive acceptance: all FEs (no student signatures are required)

📃 Student Funding Estimate PDF: Gross Loan Amounts Added

What is it:
The student-facing Funding Estimate PDF has been updated to display both gross and net loan amounts.

Why it matters:

Students now see both gross and net loan amounts side by side, which improves financial literacy and enables more informed borrowing decisions.

Reminders & Updates

• Reminder that you must complete your annual UEI registration on SAM.GOV
• 2024-25 FAFSA corrections deadline 9/13/2025
• FVT/GE Reporting deadline 9/30/2025
• Pell 24/25 Closeout Deadline 9/30/2025
• TEACH 24/25 Closeout Deadline 9/30/2025
• FVT/GE deadline 10/1/2025
• FISAP 26/27 Deadline 10/1/2025

Looking for helpful resources or need assistance?
Visit our support page to access our knowledge base or submit a ticket to our team with your technical questions.