This tool can help estimate college costs amid FAFSA delay [Video]

INDIANAPOLIS — Schools are stuck in a holding pattern. 

Melissa Smurdon, at Butler University, said they are anxiously awaiting this information.

“We have launched a lot of additional communication to try to reassure and tell people what timeline we expect,” Smurdon said. 

Smurdon believes that once they receive the data, it will take them three to four weeks to turn it into offer letters. 

While May 1 is still Butler’s deadline for students to commit, it could change.

For example, Purdue University and Indiana University Bloomington both extended their decision deadline to May 15. Ball State University said in an email that they are planning to move the May 1 national college decision date to a later date very soon, based on the Department of Education not providing FAFSA data to institutions until the first half of March at the earliest. 

If families are trying to estimate costs, a …