FAFSA Drops ‘Nonbinary’ Gender ID Option, Streamlines Race/Ethnicity Questions
Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images- Students will no longer be able to mark “nonbinary” on the FAFSA form.
- It is unclear what this means for students who have already filed a FAFSA and identified as nonbinary.
- Future forms will combine race and ethnicity questions, mainly impacting multiracial students.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is making significant changes to two demographic questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
ED announced that students will no longer be able to mark the “nonbinary” or “prefer not to answer” options on the question asking students to identify their sex.
Future FAFSA forms will also consolidate race and ethnicity questions, meaning there won’t be separate questions asking students to identify their race and whether they are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin, according to a summary of upcoming FAFSA changes.
The change removing the “nonbinary” option is effective immediately, according to a statement from ED.
President Donald Trump on his first day in office signed an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which makes it official U.S. policy to recognize only two sexes. Removing “nonbinary” as a FAFSA option now brings the form in compliance with this executive order.
ED did not provide comment on what would happen to FAFSA forms that have already been submitted with the “nonbinary” option selected.
The race/ethnicity change is planned for the 2026-27 FAFSA. The department said it is on track to release the form by Oct. 1, which is the mandated deadline after the recent passing of the bipartisan FAFSA Deadline Act.
“The Trump administration will correct the failures of the last administration and ensure students and families can easily access the FAFSA form in a timely manner,” Acting ED Under Secretary James Bergeron said in a statement.
“Families and students depend on the FAFSA form to plan their futures, and any release delays or unnecessary politicization of the form is wholly unacceptable.”
The race/ethnicity incoming change is a potential first step in addressing data collection concerns at ED.
Robert Maxim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told BestColleges that current ED policy is to ask two separate ethnicity and race questions. The first asks students to state whether they identify as Hispanic or not, while the second asks them to mark what race they are.
However, if a student says they are Hispanic, then they are automatically “topcoded” as Hispanic, even if they select another race, Maxim said.
By combining the two questions, ED can now gather more specific data about student demographics. A student who identifies as both Hispanic and Native American will no longer be counted solely as Hispanic, for example.
ED’s proposed FAFSA change also adds “Middle Eastern or North African” as an option to the question about race and ethnicity. This further helps distinguish student demographics, at least for data collected through the FAFSA.
This brings the FAFSA closer to compliance with a federal data policy directive finalized under former President Joe Biden.