Updated November 21, 2024 at 2:17 p.m. ET

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is now open to all students and families hoping to get help paying for college during the 2025-2026 school year.

After weeks of testing the online form, the U.S. Department of Education released the official request THURSDAY. (The paper form is also now available.) The online FAFSA may not look new, but it’s certainly improved over last year’s version.

“Honestly, it’s a breeze,” says Christina Martinez, a financial aid counselor at California State University, Los Angeles. She helped students fill out the form during the exam period and said: “It went very well. »

This is completely different from what students experienced during the last FAFSA cycle:

After a congressionally mandated redesign intended to simplify the form, the FAFSA was significantly delayed and its rollout was halted. plagued by problems. As a result, many students had to wait months longer than usual to find out how much college would cost them and where they could afford to enroll, causing many to delay their decision. There is concern some students decided to postpone their studies altogether. A recent report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that problems with the latest FAFSA “contributed to approximately 9 percent fewer high school students and other first-time applicants submitting a FAFSA, with declines in “higher rates being recorded among low-income students.”

MorraLee Keller of the nonprofit National College Attainment Network (NCAN) says this year’s form looks almost identical to last year’s, but the user experience is significantly improved.

“We really need to send out a very positive message that a lot of work has gone into this system for 2025-2026 to make it a completely different experience than last year. So everyone needs to give the system a chance. system.”

What the Ministry of Education is doing differently this time

Completing the FAFSA is the only way for students to access federal financial aid and be considered for grants, loans, and some scholarships. Each year, more than 17 million students complete the application.

Typically, the form is available to all students on October 1. But this year is when the department began testing the form with a limited number of students and institutions. FAFSA Executive Advisor Jeremy Singer said in an August press release that the testing period was intended to “discover and resolve issues with the FAFSA form before it is available to millions of people.” students and their families.

During the last FAFSA cycle, in addition to form issues, students also had difficulty reaching the FAFSA call center for assistance. According to the GAO, “nearly three-quarters of all calls to the call center” went unanswered during the first five months of deployment. This time around, the Ministry of Education has increased call center staffing levels – by almost 80% since January – and plans to expand the center’s hours.

“So far, the call center is doing very well,” U.S. Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal told NPR. “At the current volume, people are getting their calls answered very, very quickly.”

He cautions that there may be times when higher call volumes result in wait times, but he’s confident the experience will be smoother overall.

Beth Maglione, CEO and interim president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), says she is closely monitoring the department’s testing process and is pleased with what she has seen.

“Federal leaders have kind of listened and taken to heart the lessons learned from last year’s difficult rollout and used those lessons to chart a more stable path forward.”

So far a less painful process

Low-income students and students whose parents or spouses do not have a Social Security number (SSN) – whom the GAO refers to as “mixed-status families” – suffered the most from the difficult rollout of the previous FAFSA. One of the challenges faced by mixed-status families was an issue that prevented anyone without an SSN from filling out the form.

Kvaal says, throughout the beta testing period: “We’ve made a number of changes to make the process easier for parents and spouses who don’t have a Social Security number. or eight months ago.

At Cal State LA, where Christina Martinez works, the majority of students are low-income and many come from mixed-status families. She says most of her students had problems with the form last year, but this year it’s a different story.

Martinez says the form contains more informative language that helps students avoid mistakes. On average, she says it takes students about 20 minutes to complete the form, although the FAFSA website suggests allowing them about an hour. (The website also includes a checklist for instructions on how to prepare the application.)

NCAN’s Keller says that while she’s excited about the improvements, she’s waiting to see how the new FAFSA system responds to an increased volume of applications now that the form is officially out of beta and open to all families .

Keller has one piece of advice for students and families, which Martinez and Maglione echoed: Complete your FAFSA as soon as possible.

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