By MorraLee Keller, Senior Director of Strategic Programming
Reading time: Six minutes
As we await the opening of the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), also known as the Better FAFSA, byDecember 31, here is a final rundown of the key changes you can anticipate that the National College
Attainment Network (NCAN) is aware of as of December 18, the date of our final Success Digest of the year. Please stay tuned to our LinkedIn page for
announcements on or after December 18 through January 1. During early 2024, students and families as well as those who support them in the financial aid process will experience challenges related to the new FAFSA. NCAN appreciates all your efforts
to help ensure students can pursue their postsecondary plans next year.
Delayed Opening, Soft Launch, and Delayed Completion Data
The delayed FAFSA opening by December 31 instead of October 1 has required many states and colleges to move their FAFSA priority deadline date to later in the year. It will be critical for students and advisors to check institutional websites to verify
the deadlines. For instance, on December 15, West Virginia announced the FAFSA deadline for the Promise Scholarship and the state Higher Education Grant is now May 1.
Also on December 15, the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced several additional
FAFSA-related delays.
First, FSA said that “the period leading up to and after December 31” would be a FAFSA “soft launch,” during which time users might encounter “planned pauses” for maintenance and waiting rooms. These planned pauses - during which the FAFSA web site will
be down - will occur without advance notice and will allow FSA to quickly address issues negatively affecting the applicant experience. During these pauses, users who are already online will be able to complete their work, but other users may not
be able to begin or resume work on the 2024-25 form. FSA noted that , "students and families will have ample time to complete the 2024-25 FAFSA, and do not need to rush to fill out the form immediately when the soft launch period opens.”
For organizations that host FAFSA completion events, FSA offered the following guidance: “Please consider and plan for the possible impact of the soft launch and delays it might create in accessing the form during December and January. If possible, we
recommend you plan these events for later in January and in February to account for the soft launch period, in the event there is planned site maintenance that could impact your events.” NCAN gave similar advice a few months ago.
Finally, FSA announced that for state aid agencies and college access partners, detailed school-level data on FAFSA completions will not be available until April 2024. Due to this delay, NCAN will be unable to launch our FAFSA Tracker in late January as originally expected. Since its inception, nearly 400,000 people have used the Tracker, making it a helpful resource for raising awareness about FAFSA completion rates for high school seniors. States
will receive Institutional Student Information Records on the same timeline as institutions and may still be able to roll up these data and feed them into their own state dashboards to monitor FAFSA completion. If your state is willing to share an
extract of high school-level data with NCAN or if you have questions about the implications of the delayed public FAFSA completion data file, please contact NCAN's Senior Director of Data and Strategic Initiatives Bill DeBaun at debaunb@ncan.org.
Preparation for Completing the FAFSA
Accessing the online FAFSA will require each person (student, parent, or spouse) to have an FSA ID. It is strongly encouraged that everyone has their FSA ID set up several days prior to completing the FAFSA.
When the FAFSA opens, the system will allow people without Social Security numbers to set up an FSA ID. Signature pages will no longer be available. If a person cannot verify their FSA ID with this new process, they will be required to work with FSA to submit copies of identity documents and complete an attestation form (currently not available but to be posted on www.studentaid.gov).
People inputting their information on the FAFSA this year will be referred to as contributors. Contributors will each need their own FSA ID. Persons previously issued an FSA ID can continue to use it. Persons who will be a contributor on multiple FAFSAs
can use their same FSA ID on those applications.
If someone sets up an FSA ID and immediately moves to completing a FAFSA, they will be unable to transfer any financial information from the IRS and will have to manually enter the answers to all the questions.
For dependent students with separated or divorced parents, the definition of which parent’s information belongs on the form has changed. Starting with the 2024-25 form, the parent who provided the most financial support to the student in the previous
12 months should place their information on the form. If that parent has remarried, they will be required to report their spouse’s information as well. Knowing this new definition is critical to identifying which parent/stepparent(s) will need an
FSA ID.
Delayed Processing of the FAFSA
In November FSA announced delays in processing of submitted 2024-25 FAFSAs. These include:
Colleges will not receive data on any submitted FAFSAs until late January 2024. Therefore, students and families will not be able to have any detailed discussion with a financial aid office about the submitted FAFSA until after the
college receives the data.
After a FAFSA is submitted, students will receive a confirmation email and access to a confirmation page with their estimated Student Aid Index, or SAI, (replacement for EFC) and estimated federal aid eligibility. We strongly recommend
that you encourage students to print a copy of the confirmation screen for their records and to have some sense of their financial need.
Students will not receive their FAFSA Submission Summary (new name for the Student Aid Report) until the end of January. As such, students will not be able to go in and add colleges or make any corrections until they receive that
document.
State agencies will also not receive information on processed FAFSAs until the end of January. The state will therefore be delayed in providing student level data reports for which students have completed the FAFSA. These reports will likely not become
available until mid-to-late February.
With colleges not receiving FAFSA data until late January, they will need time to fully test their systems. This process may take weeks. Therefore, it is expected that students will not begin to receive aid offers until late February or Marchat the earliest.
Students with Unusual/Special Circumstances
If you are working with students who are in unusual circumstances that would cause harm for them to communicate with parents, you know they will need to provide documentation to their colleges. You may wish to assist students gather documentation or letters
for these unusual circumstances. Students can be proactive and reach out to their colleges after filing their FAFSA but should wait until they receive their FAFSA Submission Summary so they know that the college has their information.
Students with special circumstances (referring to changes in family income or extraordinary expenses) should also reach out to the colleges once they have their FAFSA Submission Summary to help understand the process for a financial aid review.
Return to Regular Processing
FSA has indicated that once they move beyond the initial backlog of FAFSA processing, things should return to normal processing timelines.
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