The 25-26 FAFSA will be rolled out in phases beginning October 1. Only select students and schools will be able to complete the FAFSA when it first opens, with more groups being added over time until (hopefully) everyone can complete the FAFSA by December 1. Yes, this is confusing - the hope is that bugs can be worked out in real time & having fewer students and schools will theoretically make this easier. NASFAA | ED Announces Plans for a ‘Phased Rollout’ of the Upcoming 2025-26 FAFSA
Ugh.
Seriously? Why!
Does the FAFSA rollout have any impact on the ability to apply ED? My first child will be applying this round, so I don’t have any experience with this.
No, it doesn’t affect the ability to apply ED. Until recent years, the FAFSA wasn’t available until January - having it available earlier is helpful for ED, but not a necessity.
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I think most ED schools use the CSS Profile. But if there is an ED school that uses only the FAFSA, how would need based aid be determined without a FAFSA, @kelsmom
For example, University of Chicago uses the FAFSA and a short college based form. If the FAFSA isn’t available in time for ED applicants to complete…so they get their financial aid awards with their ED acceptance…what will happen? Their ED notification date is mid-December. That’s a tight squeeze for their financial aid folks.
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I’m not sure what they do, to be honest. I’m sure that they have a plan!
Opinion The new FAFSA was supposed to help students. It’s still a problem.
Yet another bureaucratic failure leaves students without a functioning application for federal aid.
https://wapo.st/46OJ1rm (gift link)
NASFAA | No Batch Corrections on FAFSA.
No Batch Corrections on FAFSA
“The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced that colleges and universities will not be able to submit batch corrections on FAFSA records for the 2024-25 aid cycle, just over a month after promising that this functionality would be available in mid-August,” Whiteboard Advisors writes.
Oh for heavens sake. This was supposed to be completed in 2022…two years after the legislation to do so was passed. The deadline was extended, but even now the problems persist.
This is probably the worst roll out I’ve ever seen…and there is absolutely no excuse for a many years delay in getting this right.
I worked with Federal Student Aid for many years, and I was well aware that they had antiquated systems and had to parcel things out due to lack of funding for staff who could do the work. I was often unpleasantly surprised by answers to my questions at training sessions, but I understood the constraints FSA was working within … Congress told them what had to be done by when, and they really didn’t receive the funding they needed to get things done. I sympathized, because that’s exactly how it was in the school financial aid office.
However, even I could not anticipate what a complete and utter cluster this has been.
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I feel badly for students who didn’t get their confirmed financial aid packages in a timely fashion, and had trouble submitting. And I really feel for the financial aid folks at the colleges who had to deal with this BIG mess and meet deadlines anyway.
This is one of those times when oversight should have been happening…and clearly wasn’t. AND a year ago should have been a huge heads up that they needed to get all of this fixed. Guess it wasn’t.
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FAFSA 2025-26 prototype finally available (this typically comes out in April/May.)
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