Next FAFSA will be widely available sooner than expected, feds say

The next version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is working well and could be made widely available online to students “in the coming days,” officials from the U.S. Department of Education said Thursday.
The new timeline for its release, which is slightly earlier than the agency projected, means families itching to fill out the form, which applies to the 2025-26 school year, will be able to access it sooner.
Read more:The next FAFSA will go live in October – but not for everyone
After several delays and glitches during the last enrollment cycle, federal officials amped up their efforts to fix the FAFSA, which students nationwide must complete to get federal help paying for college.
To avoid another crisis, the Education Department has been slowly rolling out the newest iteration of the application, which gets refreshed before each school year. Since the beginning of October, more than 14,000 FAFSA forms have successfully been submitted, according to the agency. During the test run, the department focused on working with certain colleges and smaller groups of students, including applicants from mixed-status families and without permanent homes.
Read more:Government watchdog blames Education Department leadership for chaotic FAFSA rollout
On a call with reporters Thursday, Jeremy Singer, an executive from the College Board whom the Education Department recruited to help improve the FAFSA, said the agency’s “systems have been fully tested and they are ready to go.”
“We are in a radically different and better place than last cycle,” he said.
While agency officials would not say what date the form would become widely available online, they said they were confident it would be before the end of November and likely by the end of next week.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.