SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Historically, high school seniors and college students would begin filing their federal student aid forms in the fall. This is the second year that a delayed application launch will affect students.

The 2025-2026 Free Application for Federal Student Aid application will open on Dec. 1, rather than the standard Oct. 1 date, the U.S. Department of Education said. FAFSA’s delays are nationwide.

A limited number of students and institutions will access the form beginning this month as a way to prevent hiccups once the application goes live. This is part of the Department of Education’s testing period, which will be used to address potential obstacles before everyone has access in December.

While another round of delays could cause frustration for students, experts like Jill Desjean are “a lot more optimistic” that the FAFSA will work this way around. Desjean serves as the senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

“We know it is two months late, and that is not ideal,” Desjean said. “But if it’s fully functional, if every piece of it works, and every time a student or a parent has to go in and they actually can complete their FAFSA quickly, without too much trouble to submit it on the first try, that’s a win.”

An attempt to simplify FAFSA

Desjean hopes this year is less disruptive than the prior application period. This delay is because the FAFSA had to be essentially recreated, she added.

“The narrative has always been: It’s hard to apply for financial aid, and it’s true,” Desjean said. “The form was long, it was complicated and discouraged a lot of people from even bothering. The whole point behind this simplification effort is to make it easier, and it is going to be easier.”

The California State University system does not anticipate any major delays in December, it said in a statement.

Last year, the system cited issues with the Dec. 31 launch of the application, as well as university access to student records until March as a reason for delays.

Andrea Montgomery, a counselor at C.K. McClatchy High School in Land Park, said the biggest potential issue for students is a snowball effect where financial aid offers could be delayed. Currently, only the application’s opening date has been pushed back.

In March, when students in Sacramento were faced FAFSA delays, Montgomery said the majority of her school’s study body relied on financial aid. Without FAFSA, higher education isn’t accessible. Last term’s mishaps didn’t just delay financial aid offers, but the arrival of funds entirely, she said.

“Hopefully, they learned from last year, and it’s not going to be that way again,” Montgomery said. “That would be the issue, if we get to decisions and students are accepted to schools and then they aren’t given a financial aid offer. I think the biggest impact is when a student has been accepted to a school, and they aren’t sure what it might cost them out of pocket to attend.”

The 2024-2025 FAFSA application was originally delayed due to a calculation error. As a result, schools ended up scrambling with deadlines, which trickled down to confusion for students, said Desjean.

What should students do in the meantime?

Moving forward with this year’s application, Desjean recommends students file their FAFSA as soon as possible. Because of last year’s delays, students were entirely discouraged from even going through the process, she said.

The National College Attainment Network estimates that 408,000 fewer high school seniors finished their FAFSA, compared to last year.

“It is tricky. while I’m cautiously optimistic that this year will be better, we did live through last year,” Desjean said. “The evergreen advice that I always give to someone is fill up the FAFSA as soon as it’s available.”

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