FAFSA Changes

The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) announced that the 2024-25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), also known as the Better FAFSA, will open by December 31, 2023.

Although the announcement’s language of “by December 31” implies that the FAFSA could launch sooner, the NCAN recommends that for planning purposes, our member organizations use December 31 as the effective opening date.

Unfortunately, the Better FAFSA launch will come with some implementation changes and delayed processes referred to in the announcement. Notably, although students will receive a confirmation email with their Pell Grant eligibility and estimated Student Aid Index, colleges and universities will not begin to receive Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) until later in January. We anticipate that institutions of higher education will then need multiple weeks to load the data, test systems, and begin to generate financial aid offers, likely reaching students in mid- to late-February at the earliest.

The announcement outlines other changes to the 2024-25 cycle, including the fact that direct connections to state financial aid applications will not be available. These connections will return with the 2025-26 FAFSA. There will also be a delay in the processing of institutional corrections and paper FAFSAs, scheduled to begin in February. All of these factors complicate a year in which we are already implementing comprehensive changes for the better including direct data exchange with the Internal Revenue Service and a new process to create FSA IDs for those without Social Security numbers.