The beginning of October typically signifies the start of the school financial aid application process. But now — for the second 12 months in a row — that’s not the case.
The FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, will as a substitute formally launch by Dec. 1 to permit the U.S. Education Department to run a testing period before it opens the shape to the broader public. Thousands and thousands of scholars must fill out the FAFSA every year to access college grants and loans, and the so-called “phased rollout” is meant to offer officials time to discover and work through issues — all within the hopes of avoiding a repeat of last 12 months’s fiasco.
Last week, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona assured college leaders in a letter that the department had “all hands on deck” to fulfill its recent timeline this 12 months, saying the federal government is working to release the 2025-26 form following software-industry best practices.
When will the 2025-26 FAFSA come out?
The phased rollout, which incorporates 4 beta testing periods, began Tuesday. The primary testing group is comparatively small, with just a whole bunch of scholars tapped to fill out the shape. The Education Department chosen six college-access community-based organizations that recruited students to fill out the shape at in-person completion events.
“Through October and November, we are going to expand our testing to incorporate tens of 1000’s of scholars and many differing types of high schools and postsecondary institutions,” Jeremy Singer, the newly appointed FAFSA executive advisor, said in a news release announcing details of the rollout.
The FAFSA will then open to all students “on or before Dec. 1,” the department has said. (The FAFSA typically comes out in the autumn ahead of the tutorial 12 months the shape applies to. So the 2024-25 application was released last 12 months, and the 2025-26 application is the first focus now.)
Higher education groups and financial aid officers up to now have had mostly positive responses to the brand new timeline and testing period for the 2025-26 application, saying that releasing a completely functional form later within the 12 months can be higher for college kids than opening the FAFSA on Oct. 1 and having to take care of months of problems.
“While we wish we could have an earlier FAFSA open date, we support end-to-end testing to make sure the product released on December 1 works for college kids, families, and schools,” Beth Maglione, interim president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said in August.
What happened with last 12 months’s FAFSA rollout?
Last 12 months’s form, dubbed “Higher FAFSA”, marked essentially the most significant update to the financial aid form in many years. But the discharge was marred by delays and repeated technical problems that, within the best-case scenarios, caused headaches for families and, within the worst cases, discouraged some students from attending college in any respect.
All the problems with the 2024-25 application cycle were within the highlight again last week, when the Government Accountability Office released a scathing report concerning the rollout and presented it during a congressional hearing.
The Education Department rushed through testing the shape last 12 months, leading the department to discover greater than 40 separate technical issues after the FAFSA was released publicly, in keeping with the federal government watchdog. Some issues still hadn’t been fully resolved as of early September 2024, the GAO found, including barriers that proceed to complicate the method for college kids who’ve a parent or spouse and not using a Social Security number.
When students tried to get help from the Education Department, they were often unsuccessful. Some 4 million calls, or 74%, weren’t answered on account of understaffing at the decision center. And when calls were answered, students often weren’t given clear details about when the FAFSA issues can be resolved, the GAO found.
For its part, the Education Department put out a white paper sooner or later before the GAO report outlining all of the ways it has improved the method for this 12 months’s FAFSA release. That features a clearer timeline, testing periods to make sure the form functions properly when released, improved online resources to assist students and oldsters while they’re filling out the shape, and 700 recent call center agents to handle call volume.
Provided that some of the common complaints from colleges and families alike last 12 months was poor communication — an issue the GAO also highlighted in its report — the department has also repeatedly stressed it is going to provide more transparency and clearer communication this 12 months. The department has already began posting updates to a public dashboard, where this week it is going to begin sharing progress reports from the beta testing.
Learn how to prepare for the 2025-26 FAFSA
Since the 4 beta testing periods are run through schools and college access groups, individual students and oldsters cannot join to access the shape early.
And that’s OK — Shannon Vasconcelos, who works with families filling out the shape through her role as senior director of school finance at Vibrant Horizons College Coach, told Money in August that she’d recommend waiting for the federal government to discover and resolve major issues first.
“I’d let the department work out the kinks in the shape before I used to be anxious to hop on there,” she says. “Colleges usually are not going to set any financial aid deadlines so early that you simply couldn’t complete it on the conventional timeline.”
Students applying within the early-decision admissions rounds will likely see essentially the most disruption to a typical schedule, since they might normally have financial aid submission deadlines in the autumn. Regular-decision applicants shouldn’t see too many deadline changes, assuming the shape is fully functional in early December, Vasconcelos said.
Still, because things are in flux, everyone applying to varsity this 12 months should pay close attention to the financial aid deadlines of individual colleges. Some can have shifted their calendars to account for the brand new FAFSA timeline.
Within the meantime, you may also check whether colleges have any processes for accessing early award estimates; many built those last 12 months after the repeated FAFSA delays. If not, all colleges are required to have a net price calculator that may provide you with an estimate of your expected price before you fill out the FAFSA.
Finally, students applying to a subset of greater than 200 mostly selective colleges must fill out a second financial aid application called the CSS Profile. That also opened like usual on Tuesday. While the 2 forms require a number of the same information, the CSS Profile is way more in depth, and students shouldn’t feel they must wait for the FAFSA to start on the profile.
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