(The Hill) — The Ministry of Education novel date for the start of Free Application Forms for Federal Student Aid for 2025-2026 puts advocacy groups in a tough position, saying the move is the best of the bad options but creates a sense of fear after last year’s FAFSA situation.
Experts said a decision must be made whether to delay the submission of forms this year or to maintain the normal October 1 deadline, even if the applications contain errors and create difficulties for students and families.
The department promises that the application deadline will be fully operational for everyone on December 1. However, the groups will be keeping a close eye on the situation after last year’s FAFSA chaos, which left some colleges still processing the forms.
“I will say that there is definitely not 100 percent confidence from the financial aid community, because it was really – the year 2024-2025 – was really traumaticand the trust is definitely destroyed. [the Department of Education] “I would say there’s still some work to do to restore that trust, and I think they know that,” says Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
The Department of Education (DOE) announced Wednesday that FAFSA forms for the upcoming school year will be available to only select individuals starting Oct. 1. The forms will be rolled out in phases, with only a select few selected to have their applications processed early so the department can identify any errors in the system.
The novel deadline for making the applications available to everyone is December 1, two months after the usual launch date but earlier than last year’s rocky start.
“I think it is a tough trade-off between functionality and timeliness, and that is an issue that NCAN [the National Collegiate Attainment Network] We discussed with our members and internally and tried to get everything worked out. But ultimately, we concluded that the most essential thing is that the form is fully functional, that advisors and financial aid administrators have confidence in the system and students, and that requires making sure it is reliable and functional from start to finish and that students can receive financial aid in a timely manner. This announcement allows them to do the necessary testing to make sure it is fully functional. And that is a positive development from our perspective,” said Catherine Brown, senior director of policy and advocacy at NCAN.
Republicans in Congress were less flexible.
“For the second year in a row, the Biden-Harris administration will miss the traditional deadline to make the FAFSA form available to students,” said Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, who last month introduced a bill that provides The forms will be released in October. “We saw last year that colleges cannot create financial aid packages without timely FAFSA information. Many students may forgo college if they cannot decide on a school because they do not know if they are eligible for student aid.”
In addition to complaints about the delay, supporters also say there are some parts of the proposal that were not completed on time.
There are two ways schools process FAFSA forms: one at a time and in batches. Universities usually process applications in batches because it is easier and less time-consuming.
“The Department of Education has said that all FAFSA functionality, including corrections, will be available on December 1st according to their timeline, and when we clarified with them – whether that includes both the individual corrections and the ability to send batches – they confirmed that the ability to send batch corrections is not included in that. And they don’t have an estimated target date for the launch of batch corrections for 2025-2026, so that was a little disappointing part of the announcement they made this week, because they had said full functionality would be available by December 1st, and for us, full functionality includes batch corrections,” McCarthy said.
The frustrations and skepticism come afterwards the catastrophic rollout of the revised FAFSA forms last year, which did not begin until December 30, when the forms were available for specific periods.
From then on, the system was plagued by bugs and errors for months and backups had to be created for students, families and colleges.
In March, the Energy Department announced that there was a 40 percent gap between applicants for the 2024-2025 school year and those for the 2023-2024 school year. Currently, the gap has narrowed to 4 percent, according to the department, but Brown said her group’s FAFSA tracker, which is for high school graduates only, still shows a 10 percent gap compared to last year.
“We hope that gap closes, but it is still very concerning. And we may see how that affects enrollment in the fall,” she added.
And fear of a repeat of the previous FAFSA cycle is prompting schools and stakeholders to create backup plans.
“Worst-case scenario, December 1 is not the date when the forms are fully operational and online. Then institutions just have to try to think ahead and be strategic about how they communicate with those who want to enroll at their institution and let them know what help they could get given the restrictions they have,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education.
