2025–26 FAFSA Updates: Here’s What Students Need To Know About the Phased Rollout
Credit: Tierney L. Cross / Getty Images News / Getty Images- The 2025-26 FAFSA form launched Oct. 1 to a limited number of students.
- Last year’s FAFSA launch was delayed nearly three months to Dec. 30, 2023.
- Some worry the 2025-26 form will encounter obstacles similar to the 2024-25 form.
- The Department of Education is using a phased rollout to hopefully overcome potential issues.
All eyes are on the rollout of the 2025-26 FAFSA after a less-than-ideal launch last year of the 2024-25 form.
Federal Student Aid (FSA) made the newest Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) available to select students at the start of October. The complete rollout will take place throughout the last months of 2024, although it remains to be seen if FSA and the Department of Education (ED) can avoid many of the issues that plagued the 2024-25 FAFSA.
Students and families reported numerous roadblocks and technical glitches associated with last year’s FAFSA release.
To avoid many of the same mistakes, FSA announced a phased rollout of the 2025-26 form:
- Phase 1: Oct. 1
- Phase 2: mid-October
- Phase 3: early November
- Phase 4: mid-November
Follow along for updates on the rollout as each phase is delivered, as well as any reported issues with the new form that will allow some 13 million students to access over $120 billion in federal financial aid, including student loans and Pell Grants.
October 2024 — Phase One Ahead of Schedule
The 2025-26 FAFSA launched successfully Oct. 1 to a small number of students, ED stated.
The department said phase one ran from Oct. 1-14. This allowed for two full weeks of students submitting FAFSAs, FSA generating Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) from those applications, and colleges and universities getting information.
“Our goal in this first stage of testing was to submit and process FAFSA forms for 100 students so that we could ensure the process worked as expected,” FAFSA executive advisor Jeremy Singer said in a statement. “Instead, we had more than six times that number of students and we were able to see the forms move from submission to processing — and even corrections — without any major issues.”
FSA originally planned on having 100 applications submitted, but phase one instead included 650 students.
According to the department, FSA sent 6,266 unique ISIRs to nearly 600 colleges and universities as part of the Oct. 1 launch. The form was only available to a limited number of students as part of a partnership between FSA and community-based organizations.
Phase two launched Oct. 15 and is expected to include over 1,000 students and will again be limited to certain institutions, school districts, and community-based organizations.