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New FAFSA applications to open up to students by end of December

Houston Public Media News 88.7 | By Atirikta Kumar

Published December 7, 2023 at 7:20 AM CST

Silhouettes of three people standing and wearing caps and gowns. Similar silhouettes are visible in the background. The person on the left is looking at her cellphone. — New graduates line up before the start of a community college commencement in East Rutherford, N.J., on May 17, 2018.

After more than two months of delays, students will be able to access the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application by Dec. 31.

The form which usually opens up on Oct.1, has been delayed due to the new changes brought to the application and is currently projected to open up by the end of this month for the 2024-25 school year.

The FAFSA Simplification Act was passed in 2022, and the new simplified version of the form will come with key changes to the student index calculation. Paul Negrete, the Executive Director for University Financial Aid services at Rice University, previously told Houston Public Media, about key changes coming to the form.

The changes will allow about 50,000 more Texas students to be eligible to receive Pell Grant money and approximately 132,000 Texas students will receive maximum aid, according todata releasedby the U.S. Department of Education.

To accommodate and help students meet the priority deadline for FAFSA, theTexas Higher Education Coordinating Boardshifted the state's priority deadline from January to March for the 2024-25 academic year.

Astate law requiresall graduating high school seniors to complete either the FAFSA or the Texas Application for State Financial Aid, whether they plan to go college or not.

The new delayed application will have fewer than the usual 103 questions on the 2023-24 FAFSA form. Students may be able to skip as many as 26 questions depending on individual circumstances, and some may only have to answer as few as 18 questions on the form, according to theU.S. Department of Education.

The new form will have a direct exchange of data between the IRS and FAFSA, this will allow parents to provide a consent form to transfer the information exchange between the two entities, rather than sending the information themselves.

FAFSA will still ask how many dependents are in college, however, that number will not be used to determine the amount of aid a student could receive. Another key change is that the child support received from parents or by parents is going to now be considered an asset, Negrete said.

The new FAFSA form will bring another change for students whose parents do not have a social security card. Historically, those without a social security card have not been able to sign the form electronically. The new form will allow the parents to create an FSA ID and sign online.

“A parent not having a social security number should not be a barrier to a student applying for need. So that's another positive change that we're seeing come out of this,” Negrete said.