ED Releases Institutional Interest Form and Details on Upcoming ‘Beta’ Testing Periods for 2025-26 FAFSA
By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter
The Department of Education (ED) on Wednesday released more details on the ‘beta’ testing periods for the 2025-26 FAFSA, including an interest form, which is part of the department’s initial plan of a “phased rollout” for the 2025-26 form that will be made available to all students by December 1.
In early August, ED announced that on October 1 the 2025-26 FAFSA would be available to a limited set of students and institutions for testing. Testing of the FAFSA would then expand to thousands of students throughout October and November, with a goal of having the 2025-26 FAFSA open to all students and families “on or before” December 1.
In late August, ED gave more details on what testing would look like for the 2025-26 FAFSA. FAFSA Executive Advisor Jeremy Singer said on Wednesday during a press call that the department aims to have four beta testing periods.
For this testing periods, ED said community-based organizations (CBOs), high schools, institutions of higher education, states, and other stakeholders would be invited to participate where a small pool of students will have the opportunity to complete a 2025-26 FAFSA prior to the full launch of the 25-26 FAFSA by December 1.
The first round of testing plans to be administered to hundreds of students, the second round is expected to open to thousands of students, and then the third and fourth rounds would be made available to over 10,000 students.
Initially for the first round of beta testing, which will launch on October 1, only CBOs were able to apply.
On Wednesday, ED announced that along with CBOs, high schools, institutions of higher education, states, and other stakeholders can submit an interest form to participate in beta testing periods 2-4 for the 2025-26 FAFSA cycle. The interest form indicates which testing period organizations may be interested in participating in, with Beta 2 beginning in mid-October, Beta 3 beginning in early November, and Beta 4 beginning in mid-November. The deadline to submit the interest form is September 20 at 3 p.m. EDT.
In an electronic announcement, ED listed details of what volunteers can expect. For volunteer institutions, they are expected to recruit at least 200 returning students to submit the FAFSA form. However, ED noted, this expectation could be relaxed for certain institutions to ensure participation by a broad range of school types and applicant profiles.
Institutions selected will also be expected to download Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) into their financial aid systems and test those ISIRs according to criteria determined by ED, such as verifying the calculations of SAIs and Pell eligibility amounts and checking consistency between comment codes and data fields. Additionally, institutions would also be expected to provide feedback to ED on the accuracy of ISIR processing “as early as possible,” ideally within seven days of the beta period launch.
Additionally, ED on Wednesday announced the six CBOs selected to be part of the first round of beta testing. That includes Alabama Possible, Bridge2Life, CollegeAIM, Education is Freedom, the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, and the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria.
Singer said during a press call that each of the six CBOs, selected for the first beta period, have committed to recruit 100 students to complete the 2025-26 FAFSA during the first round of testing. Additionally, each CBO will host an in-person FAFSA event within the first few days of October, where members of ED will observe, said Singer.
“We are very much looking forward to learning from our users and incorporating their feedback,” Singer said during the press call. “This is all part of our larger work to ensure that we have a reliable, well tested for, free of any major defects, ready for all students and contributors on the first of December.”
Singer said this process will allow ED to test the FAFSA system “end to end” from the submission process, to processing, to institutions and “possibly” state agencies receiving ISIRs.
NASFAA Interim President & CEO Beth Maglione said in a previous statement that the association hopes this testing period will allow for a much smoother rollout when the FAFSA is available to all applicants.
“We all want this year’s FAFSA rollout to work for students and schools, and urge the Department to keep the lines of communication open with the financial aid community so that we can plan appropriately, provide accurate advice and assistance to students, and help troubleshoot issues as needed,” Maglione said.
As for next steps, ED said it aims to announce the organizations selected for Beta 2 testing by September 24 and for Betas 3 and 4 “shortly thereafter.” After ED selects participating organizations, it will provide additional information to those organizations about how to recruit and work with students; how to test ISIRs; and how to work with ED during beta testing.
ED clarified that students participating during any of the beta testing periods will be able to select any institution to receive their FAFSA data, and those institutions and states will also be able to access those ISIRs after they are processed, regardless of whether they expressed an interest in participating in the beta test.
ED said that it will share “regular updates” with all stakeholders, including information about the bugs that are uncovered in the testing period and the resolution status of those bugs.
“We are grateful for the hard work of so many dedicated college counselors, financial aid advisers, and other educators who share our goal of helping all students get the help they need to pay for college,” ED Under Secretary James Kvaal said in a statement.
Publication Date: 9/12/2024
James C | 9/12/2024 10:23:05 AM
So as of today they offer no relief from FVT/GE but want schools to take on the added responsibility to test the FAFSA for them? No thanks. When is Congress going to hold the Department responsible for the 2024-25 fiasco?
Alesia W | 9/12/2024 10:21:22 AM
There are still outstanding issues with the 24-25 FAFSA. We still have issues with invitations not showing up for parents, mixed status family issues, and students and spouses with parants and spouses residing in foriegn countries unable to complete FAFSA due to all types of issues! When you call in for assistance you get the run around!
Laura T | 9/12/2024 9:47:19 AM
What about fixing what's still wrong with the 2024-25 FAFSA? It's still not free of problems and it's not just the FAFSA. It's COD and the FVT/GE reports and reporting. We still have several months to work within the 2024-25 aid year.
You must be logged in to comment on this page.