Today the Department of Education announced several FAFSA-related updates via a press release and a corresponding Electronic Announcement. Here are several toplines from today’s announcements:
- The Department has received over 1.5M 2025-26 FAFSA form submissions from students and has successfully processed and sent 7 million student records to institutions of higher education and states to prepare and package aid offers. With hundreds of extra Federal Student Aid Information Center (contact center) agents in place, the wait time for families and students calling for help is under two minutes.
- The Department launches the next phase of FAFSA Student Support Strategy and College Support Strategy to help more students complete the FAFSA and pursue higher education. In order to continue the effort to ensure that every student who wants to can apply for federal financial aid, the Department is announcing the next phase of this year, the Department will make another $50 million of federal funds available via the FAFSA Student Support Strategy to eligible organizations supporting 2025–26 FAFSA completion. Additionally, the Department is making another $10 million of federal funds available for the next phase of the FAFSA College Support Strategy. The funds will support lower-resourced institutions of higher education in ensuring that their systems are prepared to process financial aid for the 2025–26 FAFSA form.
- The Department created new, permanent FAFSA leadership positions to oversee the process and technology moving forward and provided staffing updates for those roles.
- This week, the Department is holding a FAFSA Week of Action to rally the K12 school and partners community and raise awareness about the 2025–26 form. The campaign engages organizations to help students create their StudentAid.gov account and submit their FAFSA form.
- The Department continues to make technical updates to the FAFSA form to improve usability. This week the Department successfully deployed a set of 49 updates that impact both the 2024–25 and 2025–26 FAFSA forms. The Department will continue to list issues and provide status updates on the FAFSA Issue Alerts page.
- The Department commits to ensuring students and families get the help they need to successfully submit a FAFSA form. Recent support updates include:
- A live and recorded webinar that includes a demonstration of the form, an overview of the financial aid process, and a guide to creating a StudentAid.gov account.
- A suite of resources for students and families offering a series of brief how-to videos, a federal aid estimator and tips on successfully completing the FAFSA form.
- Extended FAFSA-only FSA Contact Center hours in the evenings and on Saturdays through March 2nd. Students and families can reach agents at the contact center in English or in Spanish. Interpretation services in additional languages can be accessed at StudentAid.gov/interpreter.
For more information: Press release Electronic Announcement |
