The U.S. Department of Education recently announced there will be delays on the rollout for the 2025-2026 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This is the second year in a row that FAFSA has delays, which could mean significant negative impacts on students and families.
This past year, the process for filling out the 2024-2025 FAFSA was, to put it simply, a hot mess. Multiple delays — caused by glitches, errors, and mandated changes meant to simplify the form — led not only to mass confusion about the form, but it also significantly delayed colleges from being able to send out financial aid award letters, which in turn kept prospective students from being able to decide where they would go to school. Even worse, the FAFSA fiasco reportedly kept some students from filling out the form altogether, meaning they had zero chance of receiving federal financial aid.
Now as students are starting to prepare for the next school year, on Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Education announced that the 2025-2026 FAFSA will only be available to a small selection of students starting Oct. 1 in order to test out the process. It will then be available to everyone on Dec. 1. This delayed start date, and the need to test out the form, has many worried that there will once again be more FAFSA issues — and therefore, more financial aid confusion, issues, and delays — in the coming year.
When Can I Access The 2025-2026 FAFSA?
So, who will have access on Oct. 1 versus Dec. 1? Well, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Education on Aug. 7, “The Department will invite volunteers to participate in the testing period, and over time will make the form available to an increasing number of participants, starting with hundreds and expanding to tens of thousands of applicants. This process will allow the Department to test and resolve issues before making the form available to all students and contributors. Using this approach, the Department will launch full functionality, including submission and back-end processing at the same time.”
The press release also brought up how to hopefully combat the challenging delay of the FAFSA application last year.
“Following a challenging 2024-25 FAFSA cycle, the Department listened carefully to the input of students, families, and higher education institutions, made substantial changes to leadership and operations at Federal Student Aid, and is taking a new approach this year that will significantly improve the FAFSA experience,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in the press release. “Thanks to the partnership of our stakeholders, we’ve developed a better implementation process for 2025-26.”
How The 2025-2026 FAFSA Delay Might Affect Students
As seen from the 2024-2025 fiasco, another delayed FAFSA process can cause a domino effect that results in fewer opportunities for students looking to pursue higher education.
A delay in the FAFSA application means a delay in when students and families can fill it out and submit it, which then leads to a delay in the federal government processing and receiving this financial information. From there, this results in colleges being delayed in receiving this information and creating financial aid packages for students and sending it out to them. A delay in this information from colleges can affect students’ abilities to make a decision on what school to attend (and it give them less time to do so).
This is particularly damaging for low-income students who rely heavily on financial aid to determine where they go to college — or if they go to college at all. Similarly, this makes things extra difficult for first-generation students whose families are going through the FAFSA process for the first time. Further, this doesn’t only affect prospective students looking to apply to colleges, but also current students who rely on financial aid in order to continue each semester.
Students and families will need to wait with more information regarding the 2025-2026 FAFSA form as it becomes available. Best case scenario, this testing period will allow the process to go a lot more smoothly than it did this past year — and for all college students’ sakes, let’s hope this is the case.