FAFSA: College financial aid form for 2025-26 is officially open

Washington
CNN
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The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, officially opened Thursday for students seeking financial aid for college during the 2025-2026 school year.

The form traditionally opens on October 1, but the Ministry of Education delayed the release in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last year’s rocky rollout after making significant updates to the application. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed concern that the problems would prevent some low-income students from attending college at all.

Submission of the form is required for students to access federal Pell grants, student loans and other forms of financial aid and is completed by millions of people annually.

The department has been testing the 2025-26 form by allowing a limited number of students and families to submit the application since October 1. Officials had expected to officially release the form on December 1, but pushed up the opening date after completing four testing phases.

“The results through the beta test have been really encouraging,” Education Minister Miguel Cardona said during a conversation with reporters.

By Tuesday morning, 167,000 applications had been submitted.

“The 2025-26 FAFSA form is ready for prime time and is available both online and on paper,” Cardona said.

Earlier this week, both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed a bill that, if signed into law, would legally require the Department of Education to open the FAFSA form on October 1 of each year going forward.

In late December of last year, a new version of the FAFSA form—a culmination of changes approved by Congress in 2019 and 2020—was released.

The changes make the FAFSA easier to fill out and provide more financial aid to students and families, but implementation was plagued by problems.

The botched rollout resulted in significant delays for students, many of whom were still waiting for financial aid letters — which show how much they’ll pay for college — as they tried to decide where to enroll next fall.

An earlier analysis by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office showed that FAFSA submissions were down 3%, or by 432,000, from a year earlier in late August — when most college fall terms begin — and that the drop in applications was the largest for low-income students.

The Department of Education has said the passing gap fell to about 2% in September and that more students qualified for Pell grants, which are awarded to the lowest-income students.

Many students whose parents do not have social security numbers experienced challenges submitting the 2024-25 form as they waited for the government to verify their identity through other means.

Now, these students are allowed to submit the 2025-26 FAFSA even if their parents’ identities have not yet been verified.

Before submitting the FAFSA through Federal Student Aid websitemust a student create a username and password with Federal Student Aid, known as an FSA ID. Parents of dependent students must also create an FSA ID and complete part of the application.

The number of questions on the FAFSA varies from applicant to applicant based on his or her financial circumstances, but there are about two-thirds fewer questions than of last year’s form than previous years.

It is easier to fill out than before because some information is now taken directly from a tax return, so an applicant does not have to hunt for information. Additionally, a handful of questions have been eliminated on the updated form.

It is expected to take most people less than an hour to complete the FAFSA form, including gathering all the necessary information to complete it.

The Department of Education has added 700 agents to its contact center since January and will add 225 more over the next few weeks to help students and families submit the form. It also added extended hours for the FAFSA—weekdays and Saturdays only.