FAFSA Is Officially Out, and Everyone Is Cautiously Optimistic

"The Education Department on Thursday officially released the federal student aid application for the 2025-2026 academic year, ahead of schedule and after an extensive testing period to avoid another tumultuous rollout of the financial aid form," The Washington Post reports.

..."Roughly two-thirds of the students who participated in the beta testing at the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara submitted the financial aid form without incident, Cabrera said. The rest either didn’t have the correct information or needed a parent to contribute to the form to complete their submission.

Jill Desjean, a senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said the financial aid officers she’s spoken with who have received FAFSA records can upload them without incident and have yet to report errors in the calculations, which was a persistent problem in the past financial aid cycle.

'I’m pretty cautiously optimistic that the testing has panned out well and that [the department has] addressed a lot of the issues that held up things last year,' Desjean said.

She is especially grateful that the department has rolled out all functions of the FAFSA at once, instead of the previous process that had students waiting months to make corrections after submitting the form and prevented colleges from receiving applicant records in a reasonable time."

NASFAA's "Notable Headlines" section highlights media coverage of financial aid to help members stay up to date with the latest news. Articles included under the notable headlines section are not written by NASFAA, but rather by external sources. Inclusion in Today's News does not imply endorsement of the material or guarantee the accuracy of information presented.

 

Publication Date: 11/21/2024

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