ED Details Upcoming Testing and ‘Beta’ Period for the 2025-26 FAFSA
By Hugh T. Ferguson, NASFAA Managing Editor
The Department of Education (ED) on Tuesday provided further details on its framework and testing period for the upcoming 2025-26 FAFSA to identify and address possible errors with the form.
ED officials said they will regularly share developments concerning the 2025-26 FAFSA, including potential issues and identified resolutions, with stakeholders throughout the beta testing period in order to enable partners to have a clear view of the department’s progress.
NASFAA has urged the department to take transparent actions to enable all stakeholders, including financial aid administrators, to appropriately plan for the form’s launch.
“While we wish we could have an earlier FAFSA open date, we support end-to-end testing to ensure the product released on December 1 works for students, families, and schools,” said NASFAA Interim President and CEO Beth Maglione. “We’ve also long called for the Department to be proactive and transparent in its communication with institutions throughout the process, so that those working on the ground at college campuses can help address any potential issues as they arise. To hear that there is a plan to regularly share updates with the larger community is a welcome change.”
The announcement follows the department’s initial announcement of a “phased rollout” for the 2025-26 form, which ED said will be made available to all students by December 1.
Community-based organizations (CBOs), high schools, institutions of higher education, states, and other stakeholders are invited to participate in the beta testing period, where students will have the opportunity to complete a 2025-26 FAFSA prior to the full launch of the 25-26 FAFSA on December 1. ED is inviting only CBOs to apply to participate in the first beta period, which will launch on October 1.
However, if institutions of higher education wish to participate in the first beta period, they are encouraged to partner with a CBO. During upcoming beta periods, institutions will have the opportunity to participate independently.
The announcement also indicated that the department expects there to be a significant amount of work for CBOs and their partner institutions since potential issues will take time to resolve.
CBOs that are interested in participating in the first beta should complete a request form by September 5. ED said it will notify selected participants by September 9. ED noted that it will select between two and six CBOs for participation in the first beta period.
“We’re using the beta testing period to uncover and fix issues with the FAFSA form before the form is available to millions of students and their families,” said FAFSA Executive Advisor Jeremy Singer, who temporarily joined the department to oversee the launch of the 2025-26 FAFSA. “During this first beta test, we’re grateful that community-based organizations are willing to work with us to support students and contributors when they encounter issues. In the end, our collective efforts will benefit all students and their families in their pursuit of higher education.”
In subsequent testing periods, ED plans to work directly with high schools to host FAFSA completion nights and institutions that can recruit returning students to submit the form and process student ISIRs.
Per Tuesday’s announcement, institutions will begin receiving student ISIRs “shortly after” a FAFSA form is submitted during the first beta period. During the testing period, students will be able to select any institution to receive their FAFSA data and institutions will be able to access the ISIRs regardless of their participation in the testing period, ED said. Institutions that are not participating in the testing period are not required to access 2025-26 ISIRs prior to the 2025-26 FAFSA launch on December 1.
The department will announce additional details about upcoming beta tests in “the coming weeks.”
Publication Date: 8/28/2024
Paula K | 8/28/2024 1:36:16 PM
While I applaud efforts to make sure that the students will be able to complete the new FAFSA form, I am concerned that there are no announced efforts to make sure that students and schools will be able to submit corrections once the 25-26 FAFSA is made fully available to all students. I was thinking that by now most of the lingering issues should have been resolved and ED/FSA would have only needed to update the FAFSA form based on the new base tax year. Did I miss something here?
Korinne P | 8/28/2024 12:45:38 PM
So, community-based organizations (CBOs) will do the beta testing? Are they hoping that they will be more forgiving of issues with the form than the aid community will be? I guess we can say that the "partnerships" with ED are now long gone.
David B | 8/28/2024 8:39:43 AM
Maybe I am missing something here, but where are the institutions that will be making corrections and sending files back and forth? It seems like that was a major concern that was not as "public facing" as some of the other reported issues.
You must be logged in to comment on this page.