By Bill DeBaun, Senior Director, Data and Strategic Initiatives
Reading time: Two minutes
The US Department of Education’s (ED) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) recently released new materials that state-level agencies and actors, as well as other practitioners and stakeholders, will likely find valuable.
FSA ID Creation
The 2025-26 FAFSA will open December 1, but before then students and families can sign up for FSA IDs ahead of time so they’re FAFSA
form ready when the time comes.
To assist with account creation, FSA released:
An email template for high school seniors. The document has links for various contributor situations and other helpful guidance. FSA tested
this with over 1,000 students to date and refined it based upon their learning.
As students and contributors are working on their FSA IDs or FAFSA forms, they can go to this updated interpretation support page for written “Get Started” content
in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Korean, German, Arabic, Russian, and Haitian Creole.
While FSA has only written “Get Started” content in those 10 languages, plus Spanish and English, speakers of those languages, plus 60 more can all call 833-610-2590.They should press “7” and they will reach an agent. At this point
the caller (or person helping them) should say “Interpreter, and the name of the language they would like.” For a list of interpretation language options available via this phone number, see this list.
Beta Testing User Satisfaction
As the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) has written, FSA is in the process of beta testing for the 2025-26 cycle. A new webpage showcases data related to the
beta testing in three categories:
Beta Participation
User Surveys
Outcomes
Notably in the “user surveys” category, we see that 94% of respondents to-date rated their overall satisfaction with the form a 4 or a 5 on a 5-point scale. Additionally, 90% of respondents have agreed or strongly agreed
with the statement, “It took a reasonable amount of time to complete."
The data page also shows that through October 18, 1,735 FAFSAs have been submitted and 10,803 ISIRs have been delivered to postsecondary institutions.
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