On Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced that, on Oct. 1, it will release the 2025–26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) for beta testing with a limited set of students and institutions of higher education (IHEs) as part of a new process in alignment with software industry best practices. The Department will make the FAFSA form available to all students on or before Dec. 1.| fsapartners.ed.gov
On March 29, 2024, the Department released an Electronic Announcement (GENERAL-24-28) stating that we were aware of reports concerning inconsistent tax data provided by the IRS on the Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) for 2024-25 FAFSA applications. We also informed schools that the Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were working together to assess the reports, determine any subset of submitted applications that may be affected by the concerns, and identify any ...| fsapartners.ed.gov