New FAFSA form will be generally available sooner than expected

The latest version of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which millions of students rely on each year to pay for college, is in a “radically different and better place,” officials said.

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,” U.S. Department of Education officials said Thursday.

The new timeline for its release, which is slightly earlier than the agency expected, means that families eager to fill out the form, which applies to the 2025-2026 school year, will have earlier access to it to have.

After several delays and issues during the last enrollment cycle, federal officials have stepped up efforts to fix the FAFSA, which students across the country must complete to receive federal help paying for college.

To avoid another crisis, the Ministry of Education has slowly rolled out the latest version of the application, which is renewed before each school year. More than 14,000 FAFSA forms have been successfully filed since early October, according to the agency. During the testing period, the department focused on working with certain colleges and smaller groups of students, including applicants from mixed-status families and without permanent homes.

On a call with reporters Thursday, Jeremy Singer, a College Board executive recruited by the Department of Education to help improve the FAFSA, said the agency’s “systems are fully tested and ready to go.”

“We are in a radically different and better place than the last cycle,” he said.

While agency officials would not say when the form would become generally 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.