Liam Knox

Many highly selective colleges are pumping up their financial aid offerings. With race-conscious admissions out of the picture, it may be their best bet for diversity.

As delays to the FAFSA rollout piled up, so did an unusual number of errors, both on student forms and in the Education Department’s eligibility calculations.

The decisions, announced hours apart, came more than a year before their temporary policies were set to expire—and after a wave of similar decisions by their competitors.