Following last year’s troubled launch of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid due to changes caused by the FAFSA Simplification Act, this year’s release had the bulk of its changes revolve around refining the application process to create a smoother experience for users.
To help improve the application process, the Department of Education released the FAFSA early in October 2024 for beta users to test the system and recommend improvements. These beta tests went well enough according to Noelia Gonzalez, California State University Systemwide Director for Financial Aid Programs, for it to be opened to the public early on Nov. 18 instead of Dec. 1.
“I think the feedback that students provided on the language that was used and how questions were worded was very useful to the department to ensure that students and families are clear in understanding what is actually being asked and how to answer those questions,” Gonzalez said, “I think that is probably the biggest benefit.”
Beta testing was also done with different populations of students so that varying family types could still complete the application successfully.
“So students that were foster youth, students that were awards of court, students that come from what you would consider more traditional families, students that come from mixed-status families,” Gonzalez said. “So they weren’t only testing one particular group of students. We’re all able to get it and have success. I’m optimistic, a little cautious optimism knowing what we went through the last year, but I mean it looks really good.”
The majority of changes to the FAFSA were language-based to make the process clearer for contributors but one major change for processing is with back-end processing.
Students who need to make changes to their application for verification or altered circumstances currently have their information sent one by one.
“In prior years, we were able to send thousands or hundreds of changes at once,” Gonzalez said. “This year, we are only able to send them one by one because the process on the back end was not working. We just found out that that will change for the (2025-26) academic year and we will be able to go back and send things in batches, which is a huge time-saving benefit for us and for the students because that means that their files will be processed much quicker.”
A main goal of the CSU, according to Gonzalez, has been ensuring the Department of Education is listening by connecting them with campuses for beta testing, campus directors and others so that 2024-25 applicants’ issues are resolved and awarded their financial aid.
“We were adamant here at the Chancellor’s office that we could not move on to the (2025-26) year and leave our (2024-25) students behind,” Gonzalez said. “We wanted to make sure that all students are being served. And so the Department of Ed was receptive and they were very helpful in getting these students these last pockets of students resolved and processed.”
With applications now open, outreach will be done by the CSU by email reminding students to complete their forms before it closes.
San Diego State University is attempting to raise awareness as well through emails, social media and student’s my.SDSU accounts. Further information can be found on the SDSU Financial Aid and the Cal Coast Student Financial Center websites, including tutorial videos and webinars.
Gonzalez’s biggest pieces of advice to students are to apply, apply early and don’t wait until the last minute.
“A lot of families kind of self-select themselves out of filling it out because they feel ‘oh, I make too much money’ or ‘I’m missing this’ and we don’t want families to do that,” Gonzalez’ said. “We want families to fill it out. It’s free, it’s quick and let us decide because you never know what’s going to happen.”
