Indiana schools preparing for another FAFSA delay
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Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education announced that access to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the 2025-26 academic year is being delayed by at least two months.
The FAFSA was expected to be made available to students and families on Oct. 1, but that has now been pushed to early December. It’s the second consecutive year that the form has been delayed, with last year’s rollout of the revised form that was plagued by technical glitches that caused even greater delays.
However, Bill Wozniak, vice president of communications for Carmel-based not-for-profit INvestEd, says the state and schools have been planning ahead after dealing with last year’s difficulties.
“We were planning ahead in the spring, and now we continue to plan,” Wozniak said. “The counselors and the schools are back, so we’re ramping up our messaging. We’re ramping up everything that we’re doing. Last year, the counselors and schools were amazing, but now this year, there is an even more receptive audience, a broader audience, because everybody’s lived through it.”
Since the April deadline for the 2024-25 FAFSA, Wozniak said it has been a very long summer for schools to get families the information they need on how much aid they’re going to receive and how much they will owe.
“In the last couple weeks now, we have had calls where the family said, ‘Okay, we just got the amount we owe. Okay, we just got the final details that we needed,'” said Wozniak. “In most years, this happens in May, maybe into June, depending on the situation. I can tell you this, the financial aid offices at the schools have been working night and day to try to take care of their students and their families. It’s been a bit of a slog.”
Despite the delay for last year’s FAFSA, Wozniak said Indiana was able to put itself in a better position than other states by working to get the message out that there would be delays and difficulties with the help of about 300 high schools.
That said, Wozniak noted that there is only so much that can be done on the state and local level.
“When the form doesn’t transmit the information to the state and to the colleges, that’s something that can only happen nationally,” he said. “So when the Commission for Higher Ed needed that data that was on those FAFSAs, and the colleges needed that data that wasn’t coming, there were so many things that could not be done, and those groups were put in a really, really bad place, and we’re still feeling it today.”
In its announcement earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would start testing the system in October with a limited number of students, colleges, and universities in order to address any issues before the wider national release of the FAFSA form.
Wozniak said because of the difficulties with last year’s form, schools throughout Indiana are more cognizant and prepared for what could come this year.
INvestEd is encouraging families to get complete the FSA ID process, which allows users to fill out the FAFSA form, now so completing the form will be easier when it’s available in December.
“As we get closer to Dec. 1 and the real opening of the FAFSA, everybody will have their ducks in a row, and then we’ll really hit the FAFSA itself hard on Dec.1,” he said. “So that’s kind of the strategy: increased messaging, increased events, increased everything, but you also have a very receptive audience, which I think could be a real positive.”
Wozniak said INvestEd plans to work with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to host more than 1,000 events at schools around the state to get families prepared for the FAFSA and answer any questions.
You can learn more about INvestEd’s efforts by clicking here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.