Preparing for 2025-2026 FAFSA Processing

By Rick Cox

On November 8, 2024, the Department of Education presented a webinar on the 2025-2026 FAFSA processing cycle to provide an update on the progress. There are a number of positive signs regarding the 2025-2026 FAFSA process:

• The department is currently in phase 3 of beta testing and so far, they have not discovered any critical errors in the beta testing.
• About 11,800 applications have been processed during the beta phases resulting in approximately 68,100 ISIRs.
• Of the applications submitted, applicants have indicated a 95 percent user satisfaction rate.
• 376 corrections have been processed for 2025-2026.
• More than 20 prior issues have been resolved with the release of beta 3. For example, users living on military bases are able to enter their accurate address.
• The department has updated instructions to provide more helpful text guidance throughout the process. For example, the unsub-only process was updated to clarify this process for the applicant. Another example is the expanded “Who’s My Parent” wizard to help the applicant determine the appropriate parent for FAFSA purposes.
• Students can submit applications while their contributors without Social Security numbers await verification.

The department plans to continue providing updates through the remainder of the beta testing. But it does appear to be working much better than the rollout of the 2024-2025 FAFSA. There are a lot of positive signs for the upcoming award year.

If you weren’t able to attend the webinar, you are able to access this in the training section on FSA Partners. In the training section, select Recorded Webinars and Training and then in the drop-down menu, select Webinars and Training Videos. On the following webpage, you will see a box on the left-hand side showing recent webinars, and you can select the one from November 8, 2024.

Rick Cox is Global’s Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs and Compliance