Better FAFSA, Better Future

Instead of opening in October, the 2024-2025 FAFSA will not be available until December 2023. This is only temporary for 2024. After the 2024-2025 aid year, the FAFSA will be available in October as usual. The FAFSA Priority Filing date is May 1, 2024.

The FAFSA will feature fewer questions, and fewer requirements, and retrieve tax information using a direct data exchange from the IRS instead of the previous IRS Data Retrieval Tool.

Terminology updates that all students and parents should be familiar with:

• Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be Student Aid Index (SAI)
• Student Aid Report (SAR) will be FAFSA® Submission Summary (FSS)
• Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) will be IRS Direct Data Exchange (DDX)

A contributor is anyone who is required to provide consent for Federal Tax Information (FTI) and a signature on the FAFSA including:

• The student
• The student’s spouse (if applicable)
• A biological or adoptive parent; or
• The spouse of a remarried parent who is on the FAFSA® (i.e., a stepparent)

The new FAFSA is student-driven, meaning the student’s answers ontheir section will determine who will be a contributor (in addition to the student). Students will need the contributor’s name, date of birth, Social Security Number (SSN), and email address to invite them to complete their required portion of the FAFSA. Contributors will need to provide personal and financial information on their section of the FAFSA. 

If a dependent student’s parents are unmarried and living together, both parents will be contributors, will need to have separate Federal Student Aid (FSA) IDs, and need to provide consent. Dependent students whose parents filed their U.S. income tax return as Married Filing Jointly only require one parent contributor to complete the FAFSA. If the student’s parents filed separately, both parents will be considered contributors and therefore need separate FSA IDs. 

If an independent student is married and filed separately, both individuals are contributors and must have FSA IDs. 

To create an FSA ID, please visit the Create Account webpage one the Federal Student Aid website.

For the FAFSA to process successfully, consent must be provided by all required contributors (student, parent, parent spouse, and/or student spouse) on the FAFSA. This allows the Federal Tax Information (FTI) transferred from the IRS to be provided to higher education institutions, state higher-education agencies, and designated scholarship organizations.

Consent is provided once for the academic year and cannot be revoked in that academic year. This consent is necessary even if the contributor does not have a Social Security Number (SSN), did not file taxes, or filed taxes in another country.

Determining what parent(s) to include on the FAFSA is changing. Income and assets are to be reported for the parent who provides the most financial support even if the student does not live with that parent or lives with the other parent.  

In previous years, if a student’s parents were divorced or separated, the parent with whom the student lived the most in the past 12 months prior to filing the FAFSA was to be listed; however, this is no longer the primary consideration.

Parental Income on FAFSA

1. Parents who live together
   • Parental income and assets in the case of a student whose parents are married and not separated, or who are unmarried but live together, shall include the income and assets of both parents. 
2. Divorced or separated parents
   • Parental income and assets for a student whose parents are divorced or separated, but not remarried, are determined by including only the income and assets of the parent who provides the greater portion of the student’s financial support.
3. Death of a parent
   • Parental income and assets in the case of the death of any parent is determined as follows:
     • If either of the parents has died, the surviving parent shall be considered a single parent, unless that parent has remarried.
     • If both parents have died, the student shall not report any parental income or assets.
4. Remarried parents
   • If a parent who is divorced or widowed and would be included on the FAFSA® has remarried, the income of the parent’s spouse must be included if the student’s parent and the stepparent are married as of the date the FAFSA® is completed.
5. Single parent
   • For a single parent who is not divorced, separated, or remarried, the income and assets of the single parent shall be included.

Students and families will see a different measure of their ability to pay for college, and they will experience a change in how eligibility for the federal student aid programs is determined. The new needs analysis formula removes the number of family members in college from the calculation, allows a minimum Student Aid Index (SAI) of -1500, and implements separate eligibility determination criteria for Federal Pell Grants. Federal Student Aid has released a Federal Student Aid Estimator to help students find out how much federal student aid they may be eligible for using an estimate of the SAI.

The adjustments to the new Student Aid Index (SAI) calculation will expand Federal Pell Grant eligibility to more students. Additionally, for students who qualify, the amount of Federal Pell Grant will be based on enrollment intensity according to the chart below.

Though the FAFSA will ask how many of the student’s household members are in college, the answer will not be calculated into the Student Aid Index (SAI). As such, undergraduate students with siblings in college may see a change in their federal aid eligibility. Guidance for how a student should report their family size will align more closely with what was reported on the student’s/parent’s tax returns.

A new IRS Direct Data Exchange (DDX) will replace the IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) built into the FAFSA for importing student, parent, parent spouse, and/or student spouse Federal Tax Information (FTI). Previously, users had the option to enter their tax information manually or use the IRS DRT.

All persons on the FAFSA must provide consent for the Department of Education to receive tax information or confirmation of non-filing status directly from the IRS. In a very small number of cases, students and families will have to enter their tax data manually, but for most, that data will be automatically transferred into the application. This change makes it easier to complete the FAFSA and reduces the number of questions to be answered.

When applicable, families must now report the value of their small business or family farm. If the family farm includes the principal place of residence, students should determine the total net value of all farm assets and subtract the net value of their principal residence to determine the final value of their farm assets.