An early launch of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms by the Trump administration may have given the process, which has been marred with trouble the past few cycles, a leg up despite the current government shutdown.
The FAFSA forms were released last Wednesday, a week ahead of their Oct. 1 deadline. In the past two cycles, the forms, which were undergoing changes, missed their mandated rollout schedule, causing chaos for students and schools.
“It’s very positive. From my perspective, we haven’t heard a lot, which in this situation, I say no news is good news, because our members are definitely quick to tell us if something is not working correctly. And as we’ve seen in the last couple of years, if there were issues like major disruptions to the FAFSA, we’ve heard from our members very, very quickly. They’re very on top of things,” said Sarah Austin, policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
“So, I’d say that the fact that we have not heard that is all good and positive, and we’re hopeful that means everything is working as intended,” Austin added.
The Trump administration announced Friday that 125,000 people have already begun their applications, marking a strong start compared to previous years.
Two years ago, the Biden administration revamped the FAFSA forms to create a simplified version mandated by Congress. Instead of the typical Oct. 1 rollout, students didn’t get access to the financial aid forms until the end of December.
After the forms were released, there were bugs and other issues that delayed a smooth implementation until March 2024. The delay caused colleges to push back decision days and ultimately caused a fall in applications.
For the next application cycle, the forms were again delayed to Dec. 1. While the rollout was much smoother and schools were able to make deadlines, advocates say every month matters in ensuring students can make proper plans for their higher education.
“Since now it’s open even before October 1, there will be more time for students and their families to complete the form … but we’re hoping to get back to really record high FAFSA completion rates. We’re off to a great start with that. The FAFSA opened actually in August in a beta capacity and has since opened to the general public,” said Catherine Brown, senior director of policy and advocacy for the National College Attainment Network (NCAN).
Along with the early rollout, there are two new aspects experts hope will help lead to increase completion rates of the FAFSA forms.
The first is parents can now be invited to fill out their financial information on their student’s form through an email invitation. Previously, parents had to create a unique ID that could take days, and any mistakes took a long time to correct. This issue was one of the biggest reasons students previously would not complete the application, according to NCAN.
The second change is eliminating the multi-day wait for verifying a person’s Federal Student Aid ID account, making it so students can now complete the FAFSA in one sitting.
“We’re really optimistic about the process this year, and, I would add, they’ve made some improvements that are likely to make it much easier than last year for students and their families to complete the process.” Brown said.
“We’re pleased to see some students logging in already and filling out their FAFSA, and we’re very hopeful that this will be a record-breaking year in terms of FAFSA completions and Federal Student Aid allocations,” she added.
But a potential curveball has been thrown into the beginning of the FAFSA form application process with the shutdown of the federal government.
As of now, the Education Department has indicated FAFSA will not be affected and students will still be able to reach customer service if problems arise. The forms will stay available and completed applications will continue to be processed.
Advocates say they don’t expect the process to be disturbed unless an extended shutdown occurs. The longest federal government closure in the past several decades was 35 days, under President Trump’s first term.
“If any sort of issues arise, would be our concern, or if it’s a prolonged shutdown,” that’s when problems could hit FAFSA, Austin said.
“But, at this point in time, it seems like everything should still be working properly, and the customer service should be available to applicants. So, I don’t think at this point we’re worried about that,” she added.
