Those of us who work in higher education or financial aid – and many families of students who are pursuing higher education – are talking about the roll-out of the new FAFSA, which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. It’s the first step in the financial aid process for college and training programs. The application and application process is designed by Federal Student Aid (FSA), which is part of the US Department of Education.
The FAFSA is used to apply for all types of federal student aid – including grants, work-study, and loans. Many states and colleges also use information from the FAFSA to award non-federal aid in the form of school and state-based grants and private scholarships, including many Vermont-based scholarships administered by VSAC.
So, any student or family anticipating college or training expenses for the 2024-2025 school year should fill out a FAFSA. After a three-month delay, the much-anticipated new 2024-2025 FAFSA form is finally here. Here’s what you need to know.
Stay calm and start here. VSAC is here to help.
As you’re reading this, you may feel a bit of anxiety – perhaps because you’ve heard chatter about the delayed FAFSA among other parents or in the media, because you remember how complicated the FAFSA form was in the past, or because you have no idea what the FAFSA is – other than something you need to do. And it may all feel like there’s a lot at stake, applying for funding for your future education. Yep, we get it. But set that anxiety aside for the moment because we promise, the FAFSA is totally doable, and many students and their families have already filed successfully. Take a breath, be patient, and read on. VSAC is here to help.
Why the late release of this year’s form? And what’s changed?
In December 2020, lawmakers passed the FAFSA Simplification Act to make changes to the FAFSA. They and FSA wanted to deliver a simpler, faster and better experience for students and families applying for educational aid and make updates to a form that had not been changed since the 1980s.
As promised, this year’s form is simpler; it collects a student’s financial information through fewer questions. Applicants can skip as many as 26 questions on the new form depending on their circ*mstances; some filers could answer as few as 18 questions. In addition, you are able to list more colleges to receive your information, and the application is now available in 11 languages (before this year, the FAFSA was only offered in English and Spanish). And the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is now the Student Aid Index (SAI), which more accurately reflects what the figure represents (the amount of financial aid a student is eligible to receive).
The new FAFSA also uses a new methodology to determine a student’s eligibility for aid. Two important changes include the fact that the adjusted value of a family farm or small business will now be used when calculating the expected financial contribution from parents. The new formula also removes the number of family members in college from the eligibility calculation.
However, eligibility for federal Pell Grants is linked to family size and to the federal poverty level, simplifying the process for families and expanding access to more students. In fact, FSA estimates that more than half a million additional students will qualify for a Pell grant, and of those that qualify, more than 1.5 million will now qualify for the maximum Pell grant amount.
Because of the time required to agree on and incorporate those changes, the FAFSA for the 2024-2025 school year was released three months later than usual (in late December, as opposed to early October). This means that students and families have less time to apply, and school financial aid offices have less time to analyze data and make awards. (School financial aid deadlines vary, so contact your schools to find out when applications are due.)
FSA opened up the new FAFSA form through a “soft launch,” where the form is available for short periods of time while they monitor site performance and form functionality. FSA initiates pauses for site maintenance and to make technical updates as needed. The pauses affect the entire site (including the part of the site where users create a studentaid.gov account (formerly FSA ID), which must be done in order to fill out the FAFSA and takes several days before is confirmed. However, all in-progress applications are saved during these pauses so students and families can return to them later when the site comes back online.
I’ve been following this – what are the latest updates?
For those of you who have already logged on to the website, here’s our most important message: If you’ve visited the site and you’re running into glitches, keep trying. The good news is, more than one million applications were submitted to FSA by Tuesday, January 9, and here at VSAC, our staff and counselors are reporting successful FAFSA submissions every day.
If you are filling out the form and get bounced out, your progress will be saved, and you can return to it later.
The FAFSA system will report student financial data to schools, state grant offices and scholarship groups in “rounds,” and the first-round report will be sent in late January. What this means is it won’t matter whether a student submits a FAFSA on January 11 or January 23; everyone’s information will be transferred during the first round at the same time.
This “batching” also means that once you submit your form, you won’t be able to update it until your information is processed. Once you hit “submit,” you will not be able to log back in and make corrections or add schools until your form is processed. However, you will have an opportunity to make additions and corrections after your form is processed.
Once FSA reports your information to your selected schools in late January, you’ll receive an email, and you’ll be able to access a submission summary through your studentaid.gov account. That summary will also provide final SAI and Pell Grant eligibility, possibly updating the preliminary eligibility information you received when you first submitted your form.
When you file your FAFSA, VSAC’s Grant program will receive your information if you are a Vermont resident, which is the same as previous years. You can apply for the Vermont Grant now and it will be matched to your FAFSA information when VSAC receives it in late January/early February. And if you’re interested in other Federal grant programs, including Pell grants, FSEOG grants, TEACH grants, and Iraq & Afghanistan service grants from the U.S. Department of Education, you automatically apply to these programs by filing your FAFSA. So you may end up qualifying for aid you didn’t even know you were eligible for.
We wrote this article on January 9. You may find more recent, day-to-day updates on FSA’s issue alert page for status updates and open issues on the FAFSA. You can also monitor FSA on social media and see their site for soft-launch updates.
Will other financial aid deadlines be delayed too?
Most schools and scholarship programs have maintained their typical deadlines, so they can make awards in time for students to enroll for the start of the 2024-25 academic year. Generally, education institutions and scholarship granting organizations are planning to award their financial aid and grants on their usual timeline.
Because the timelines to deliver financial aid information to institutions may feel crunched this year, we want to encourage students and families to not just meet deadlines but beat them.
Many of the scholarships VSAC administers require students to apply by February 14th, and many require students to submit the FAFSA as part of their application. If you’re trying to meet (or beat) that deadline, you should be starting your FAFSA now. Also, be sure to know the deadline for FAFSA submission for any higher education institutions or training programs you are applying to.
I’m glad VSAC can help. How do I take you up on that?
If you’re just getting started on filling out your FAFSA form, you may want to reference our earlier, step-by-step blog post with all the details about creating an studentaid.gov account, the filing info that’s typically needed, grants and scholarships, and more.
Our financial aid counselors are also available for one-on-one filing help – either in-person at our resource center in Winooski, or virtually from the comfort of your computer – from January 11 through March 28. These sessions are offered free of charge, so don’t hesitate to make an appointment! Visit the VSAC calendar to sign up.
Our team members will also offer Forms Nights at select schools. Check with your high school counseling office to see if or when a forms night is scheduled locally, or visit the VSAC calendar.
This story is produced by Vermont Student Assistance Corp., created by the Vermont Legislature in 1965 as apublic nonprofit agency, to advocate for Vermont students and their families to ensure that they achieve their education goals. Our vision is to create opportunities for all Vermont students, but particularly for those—of any age—who believe that the doors to higher education are closed to them. We begin by helping families save for education with Vermont’s state-sponsored 529 savings program. To help Vermonters plan and pay for college or career training, our counselors work with students in nearly every Vermont middle school and high school, and again as adults. Our grant and scholarship programs attract national recognition, and our loan programs and loan forgiveness programs are saving Vermont families thousands of dollars in interest. Visitvsac.orgto learn more.
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