2024-2025 FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)

The FAFSA for 2024-2025 is expected to be available on December 31, 2023.   This is 3 months later than usual due to many updates that have been done through the FAFSA simplification act. These changes are aimed at making it easier for students and their families to apply for financial aid with a more streamlined application process. 

The # 1 impact for students is a shorter time to make financial decisions if comparing different colleges. It is likely to be February/March before financial aid packages will be received from colleges.

Here are a few other things to know about the changes:

  •    The form has been shortened from 89 questions to 31 questions

  •   Aid will be based on 2022 parent/student income and assets along with household size.   

  •    The Expected Family Contribution (EFC) has been changed to the Student Aid Index (SAI). The SAI is a number that will be assigned to a student and will determine eligibility for certain types of federal student aid.

  •   The number of family members attending college is no longer part of the calculation

  •   The need for the applicant to self-report most income has been eliminated. A direct data share with the IRS will replace what is currently known as the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT). 

  •  For students whose parents are divorced or separated, the parent on the FAFSA will be the parent who provides the most financial support and will no longer be the parent with whom the student lives.   (If the parent contributor is remarried, step-parent information will also need to be included on the FAFSA.) Students will be able to use the "Who is my Parent?" tool to determine who should be listed as a contributor on the FAFSA.

  •  Students don’t need to wait for the FAFSA to complete the New York State TAP application.  Although it might be best to wait.  The 2024-2025 FAFSA must be completed in order for the  TAP application to be processed.

 

What can you do now?

1.      Complete the Federal Student Aid Estimator to get an estimate of how much federal student aid the student may be eligible to receive.  https://studentaid.gov/aid-estimator/

 

2.      Apply for an FSA ID, if you don't have one already.   https://studentaid.gov/fsa-id/create-account/launch