For students seeking federal financial aid to pay for college, the deadline to submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is June 30 for each academic year.
But to maximize their chances of receiving aid, prospective and current college students would ideally submit the FAFSA promptly after the application opens — long before their college and state financial aid deadlines.
This year, those college and state deadlines might look different, due to a three-month delay in the open date for the 2024-2025 FAFSA application. While the application traditionally opens in October, the 2024-2025 FAFSA rolled out as a soft launch in December.
“I really feel for students,” says Kerr C. Ramsay III, senior vice president for enrollment at High Point University in North Carolina. “Financial aid is, I think, already the most confusing part of the college search process. And for many families, one of the most important pieces. And it’s a shame that this year, students will have less time to be able to submit their FAFSA, as well as less time to be able to review their awards.”
When Are FAFSA Deadlines?
The federal application remains open for nearly 18 months, not closing until June 30.
[Read: An Ultimate Guide to Understanding College Financial Aid.]
For example, for the 2024-2025 academic year, the last day for students to submit the form is June 30, 2025. But high school seniors who plan to start college in 2024 were able to begin filling out the FAFSA as soon as it opened at the end of December 2023.
Students must submit the FAFSA to be eligible for federal financial aid like work-study, student loans and the Pell Grant, as well as a range of other college and state need-based aid. In addition to keeping the federal deadline in mind, they must juggle multiple independent FAFSA deadlines unique to their college and state. The difference between filing early, on time or late can amount to thousands of dollars in funding to pay for college.
Each state has its own grant and scholarship programs, usually for residents only, that often have deadlines much earlier than the federal deadline. In a typical year, state and institution deadlines can come as early as October, or in the early spring months of the following year. However, now with the December open date, FAFSA deadlines weren’t until at least mid-January.
“It condenses that timeline for families to receive information from the schools and to make those decisions by that May 1 deposit deadline,” says Erin Wolfe, director of financial aid at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, which had a Jan. 15 FAFSA deadline for prospective students. “The one thing families can be doing right now proactively is signing up for those FSA IDs. …That’s something that can be done now just to ease the process when the application goes online.”
If a student misses an institution or state deadline, there may still be hope for financial aid. But that decision is up to the individual school or state.
Indiana, for example, allows students to appeal if they miss the state deadline due to death of an immediate family member, serious illness of the student or an immediate family member, pregnancy, birth of a child, active duty military service, or participation in a religious or public service volunteer program.
The U.S. Department of Education publishes a list of state deadlines for the FAFSA annually. Students should also check their college’s website to find deadlines for specific grants and scholarships, or contact their financial aid office if the submission deadline isn’t clearly stated.
Benefits of Filing the FAFSA Early
Some states and institutions offer funding on a first-come, first-served basis.
[Read: Financial Aid for Online Programs: What to Expect.]
“Students should pay attention, not just to the date, but what the date means,” says Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “Does it mean you won’t qualify for any institution or state aid after that date? Or does it mean that you just won’t be the first round of review? Or does it mean that the earlier you fill it out, the more chance you have of getting that aid? That will all vary by state and institution.”
Limited funding and strictly enforced deadlines are just two of the reasons students should apply for financial aid well before the federal deadline, experts say.
There are other advantages to filling out the form early, including usually having more time to review financial aid award letters.
“We are getting better due to changing federal regulations on making costs clear, but there’s still too many schools that make it hard to understand financial aid packages,” Ramsay says. “Students need time to be able to ask what the different line items are, and be able to have great counseling and guidance from financial aid teams so that they can make the decision that’s ultimately best for them.”
However, there are processing delays for the 2024-2025 FAFSA. Schools won’t begin receiving students’ FAFSA information until the first half of March 2024, in turn holding up aid packaging and distribution of award letters.
FAFSA Completion Rates
There was a decline in FAFSA completion rates — 53.8% to 49.9% — among high school seniors between 2019 and 2021, which experts attributed to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, according to data from the National College Attainment Network, the downward trend may be reversing.
[READ: Avoid These 7 Mistakes When Applying for Scholarships.]
For instance, as of June 30, 53.4% of the high school class of 2023 completed the FAFSA — up by 1.2% from the class of 2022 and 3.5% from the class of 2021, NCAN data found.
Many experts say it’s too early to tell how the late open date, among other application changes, will affect 2024-2025 completion rates.
The December open date is “tricky timing because if they are high school students, they are on break from school so they don’t have access to their guidance counselors. And many higher education institutions as a whole shut down sometimes even the week leading up to the new year,” Desjean says. “It’s hard to predict what will happen. But I think a lot of students who are trying to fill it out when it first comes out, at minimum, won’t have access to the resources they would usually rely on for help if they get tripped up. And that’s unfortunate.”
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FAFSA Deadlines You Should Know originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 01/31/24: This article was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
