Feature photo courtesy of Sidelines Archive
Story by Maia O’Brien
The U.S. Department of Education announced in August that the 2025-2026 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form will be delayed to Dec. 1, similar to last year’s. After several problems that arose last year with the delay, many are concerned about the effects it will have this year.
“I had no real struggle with FAFSA, but it being delayed was a headache,” said freshman Byron Knight. “I do, however, worry for the sanity of the outgoing seniors as I was in their shoes some months ago.”
The FAFSA is a form that helps current and future college students determine their student financial aid, as well as find grants, scholarships and loans.
Typically, the FAFSA form is released in October, but last year’s form for the 2024-2025 year was delayed until late December 2023. Once released, many were still unable to access the form, as it was still being fixed. It was finally available Jan. 8, 2024.
Additionally, students’ information was not processed till March, and their eligibility for financial aid was not available to them until April.
“The FAFSA caused me a lot of anxiety due to it being the one thing making it possible for me to go to college,” said freshman Marciana Johnson. “As a first-generation college student, I didn’t have anyone to help me with my application, and I couldn’t get answers for what I was going through.”
Last year’s form also introduced a new chance to the students’ student aid calculation. Student Aid Index (SAI) took over the place of the Expected Family Contribution (EFC).
The EFC was commonly misconstrued as how much the student was expected to pay, so the change to SAI clarifies that it is the student’s eligibility for student aid. This came with a list of changes of those who qualified for federal student aid and left many confused.
On the 2024–2025 form, 4.7 million students filled out the form, while the previous year, 7.6 million students filled out the form.
Students and their families’ incomes were also not adjusted for inflation, causing a $1.8 billion deficit in financial aid.
“Following a challenging 2024-2025 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 Miguel Cardona, U.S. Secretary of Education, in the statement.
In hopes of avoiding similar issues to last year, a select number of students will be a part of a testing period with access to the form. The phased rollout will include four testing periods. It will start with a small group of a hundred students and eventually move to thousands of students from different high schools and colleges.
“Oct. 1 was typically what was used, but now it’s Dec. 1, so we’re losing out on two whole months of processing due to that,” said James Taylor, a worker at MTSU’s OneStop. “We’re hoping for a smoother process, but we don’t know until it gets released.”
Forms are said to be processed within one to three days after the students complete and submit them.
National College Attainment Network’s senior director of strategic programming, MorraLee Keller, advised students to create their Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID early on despite the delayed release, as well as for students to use additional resources like the Federal Student Aid Estimator.
The delayed FAFSA release for the 2025-2026 school year is all with hopes of avoiding all the complications and stress caused by the previous year’s forms. Students should continue to fill out the form once it is released to determine their eligibility for financial aid quickly.
Maia O’Brien is a contributing writer for MTSU Sidelines.
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