The FAFSA has undergone significant changes for the 2024-2025 aid year due to the passing of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Simplification Act. Because of these changes, the Department of Education moved the release date of the 2024-2025 FAFSA from October 1 to a “soft launch” beginning December 30, 2023. In future academic years, the FAFSA will resume being fully released by October 1.
The 2024-2025 FAFSA is now available for students wishing to apply for financial aid for the 2024 – 2025 academic year (please note that the Department of Education may occasionally pause access to the 2024-2025 FAFSA for maintenance). You can get started filing your FAFSA by clicking here.
According to the Department of Education, as of Jan 30th, 2024, schools will not receive the student’s information until mid March 2024. Once we receive your FAFSA data, our office will assist students with correcting any errors in their FAFSA, collecting required documents from students, and then begin awarding financial aid as soon as possible thereafter.
Why did the FAFSA change?
The changes made to the 2024-2025 FAFSA:
- Allow the U.S. Department of Education to automatically obtain federal tax information from the IRS for students, parents, and other contributors (such as a spouse or parent\guardian). Due to this direct connection, students can not update their FAFSA and will need to work with their financial aid office to make changes.
- A more streamlined application process, which reduces the number of questions students will need to answer.
- Expands the Federal Pell Grant to more students and links eligibility to family size and the federal poverty level (starting with the 2024-25 award year).
- Provides additional flexibility for assisting students with unusual circumstances.
You can read more about the FAFSA Simplification Act. here.
You can view short videos prepared by Federal Student Aid designed to answer your questions about the changes at https://www.youtube.com/@FederalStudentAid.
What did not change?
These federal aid requirements, rights, and responsibilities have not changed or had minor updates:
- The FAFSA remains an annual requirement for federal aid consideration and is available to U.S. Citizens or Eligible Non-Citizens.
- Dependency status questions to determine if your parents must provide their information remains the same.
- FAFSA will still request prior-prior year tax information (e.g., for the 2024-2025 FAFSA you will use 2022 tax information). Families that had a significant reduction in income due to extenuating circumstances can still request special circumstances review.
- Federal Education Loan requirements remain the same.