U.S. Department of Education to open new financial aid forms
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday named the first six organizations to participate in the phased rollout 2025-26 Application for Federal Financial Student Aid Form and Open interest form High schools, school districts and other entities are allowed to participate in the next three testing periods.
In August, the department said it would Take a staggered approach Start application period Apply for Federal Student Aid for Free — better known as the FAFSA — is working to resolve all questions before the updated form becomes available to everyone by December 1.
The phased rollout will make the app fully available two months later than usual.
The first testing period, which begins on October 1, will include six community organizations. The department said Wednesday it selected Alabama’s May; Bridge 2 Life, Florida; Georgia’s AIM Academy; Texas’ Education is Freedom; California’s Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation; and Virginia’s Alexandria Scholarship Fund; join.
The six organizations will provide access to the new form to hundreds of participants during the first test period. The form will be gradually opened to tens of thousands of students in subsequent testing phases.
“These organizations have each committed to recruiting more than 100 students and contributors, which will allow us to conduct end-to-end testing of the FAFSA system, from the submission process to processing to college ingestion (institutional student records) and possibly even state agencies,” FAFSA executive adviser Jeremy Singer said on a conference call with reporters Wednesday.
Singer said each community organization will host an in-person FAFSA event in the first few days of October.
“We’re going to send some of our team members out to these sites to observe and learn from our experienced partners about how students and families interact with the apps, what works for them, what’s challenging, what’s clear,” Singer said. , what is less clear.
Singh said the second testing period will be launched in mid-October, the third testing period will be launched in early November, and the fourth testing period will begin in mid-November.
Community organizations, high schools, school districts and higher education institutions must submit an expression of interest form between Wednesday and Sept. 20 as part of the next three testing periods.
The department said it plans to notify those selected for the second testing period by September 24, and those selected for the third and fourth testing periods shortly after.
The department is also working to close the gap in FAFSA submissions compared to the previous cycle. In March, the department said it received about 40% fewer FAFSA applications than the same period last year.
But as of this week, the gap had narrowed to about 2.3%, the department said.
The department also said that as of early September, approximately 500,000 FAFSA applicants were eligible to apply for the FAFSA. Pell Grant Compared with the same period in 2023.
The update to the 2025-26 form comes as the department works to fix multiple glitches and errors in the 2024-25 form that advocates have expressed concern about. The app was revamped following the passage of the FAFSA Simplification Act in December 2020.
