I’ve been working in higher education for a long time and I can confidently say that I’ve never heard as many kind, caring, deeply professional financial aid officers use the words “shit show” as I have in the last year.
(The words “train wreck” and “hot mess” also came up a lot)
It’s pretty well documented that the launch of the updated 2024-2025 FAFSA form went far more poorly than anyone expected. I think it is safe to say that many of us who knew that the Department of Education was making the most substantial updates to the FAFSA form in over 40 year expected that it would be a bumpier year that usual. I don’t know that most of us expected it would be as bad as it was.
And it was bad: delays lasted for months, some students still haven’t been fully processed, and it felt like whack-a-mole watching new issues pop up as soon as fixes were made to other issues. It was hard on students, hard on families and hard on financial aid offices, many of whom are still not done processing student aid for the fall semester, which has already started in some places. While the Department of Education currently reports that they’ve cleared all the backlog of pending FAFSAs, it’s hard not to wonder if that happened too late for some students to make their college plans.
People are still frustrated and angry, especially some families who finally got the form done and then discovered that their financial aid amounts went down because of some of the changes made to the eligibility calculations1. I’ve even seen discussions online of angry parents wanting to file class action lawsuits against the Department of Education2! Sadly, it isn’t especially surprising that a recent survey found that over half of financial aid professionals report that they’d like to get a new job in a different sector in the next year.
Last year, while talking to a group of parents of high school juniors, I very confidently said that they were lucky because there was almost no way that the financial aid process will be as bad for the 2025-2026 FAFSA application as it was for the class of 2024.
Now is when I start wondering: am I going to be right about that?
Well… maybe. Hopefully. I think.
I obviously don’t have a crystal ball or psychic abilities, but based on what’s already been shared by the federal government and my hunches based on doing this work for a long time, here’s my predictions for the next year in FAFSA:
Plan on a Delayed Start
In “normal” years, the FAFSA application goes live on October 1 for the following school year (so seniors in the class of 2025 can do the 2025-2026 FAFSA application) but the Department of Education has already announced that the FAFSA won’t be released widely until “on or before December 1”.
The DoE has also shared that they will release the form on October 1 for “testing with a limited set of students and institutions” but we don’t know yet which institutions or how students will be identified and invited to help with the testing. I’m advising the parents I know to plan on December to file, with a goal to get it in before the winter break (unless their kid has a school with an earlier deadline — but I’d give a side eye to any college with a priority deadline before the new year).
Later Letters
With a delayed FAFSA opening, college financial aid offices will once again be delayed in getting access the information they need to begin creating financial aid offers for students. While it will hopefully not be as bad as this year, I think parents and students will have to plan on it being well into spring before they get all of their financial aid offers. I’m hopeful that aid letters will be about a month earlier this year so students will get them well before the May 1st acceptance deadline, but I wouldn’t expect much before March, I think.
State Level Changes
There may be some changes at the state level. Some states, like Louisiana, that have previously had FAFSA completion as a graduation requirement are opting to repeal those laws this year. Other states, like Nebraska and New York, will be implementing mandatory FAFSA policies in the 2024-2025 school year, so some families can expect to hear that they MUST complete FAFSA this year.
I suspect that states that have their own state level financial aid systems may be looking at another year where they have to shift their application deadlines (if they have them) and some states the have used FAFSA (instead of a separate application form) for awarding state level aid may consider implementing their own applications. I’d suggest a quick Google of your state plus financial aid to see what programs might be available in your area and if they’ve updated their info for 2024-2025 yet.
A Reckoning for the Department of Education?
At this point, we still don’t have a final count of how many FAFSAs were completed this year and how far off that number is from previous years. The Department of Education is reporting that applications are down less than 3% but the National College Attainment Network, which tracks FAFSA completion at the state level reports current decreases closer to 10%, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see where the actual numbers fall.
We also don’t yet know, nationally, the impact that this bad FAFSA year may have had on college enrollment trends. I suspect final FAFSA numbers will be lower than previous years and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some enrollment dips in some places as a result.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is still investigating the implementation of the new FAFSA and will, I hope, conclude their investigation in the coming year. I, and a lot of other folks in higher ed, will be curious to see what their findings are, though it won’t really do much to make things better for this year’s process.
Confidence Campaigns
There is already a lot of discussion happening about how to restore confidence in the FAFSA and the financial aid process so I’m certain that we’ll see in increase in marketing about doing the FAFSA, why it is important, and how to make the process easier. My hope is that FAFSA will actually be easier so that this won’t feel like a hard sell for frustrated parents.
What I don’t expect to see happen this year is any big changes to the FAFSA formula. I know there are families who are really hoping that the DoE will reinstate the “more than one kid in college at the same time” benefit that went away with the new FAFSA, but I don’t see that change happening this year. I could be wrong and I do think it is a change some law makers would like to see happen but I don’t think it will happen (if it does) in time for the 2025-2026 FAFSA.
Feel free to drop a question in the comments if there is anything else you’d like to know about FAFSA for the next year!
In fairness, I should note that there are also families making the happy discovery that they are getting more grant aid than they expected because the changes worked in their favor.
I don’t think these will be successful for a variety of reasons, but I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so please don’t take this particular opinion of mine too seriously