The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has officially opened for 2025, allowing students and parents to apply for financial aid. After the numerous problems with the rollout last year (which we discussed ourselves), there has been some trepidation amongst students and parents as to whether or not these issues will persist.
In what looks like good news however, FAFSA opened for enrollment ahead of schedule, and students have been able to apply without kinks so far. In this article, we’re going to cover who should apply for FAFSA, what you need to know about this year’s application, and how to make the most of your financial aid application. Let’s get started!
Should You Apply for FAFSA?
Before we cover what the form actually entails, let’s discuss whether it’s something you need to be worried about. Generally, only students from very low income families are eligible for direct aid from the federal government, in the form of Pell Grants. However, even students who definitely are not eligible should fill out the FAFSA.
This is because FAFSA is also used to determine a student’s eligibility for a number of other financial aid programs. These include:
- Federally subsidized student loans.
- Work study.
- College’s own financial aid calculations.
That’s right. While colleges use metrics beyond the FAFSA, almost all colleges require you to complete the FAFSA in order to be eligible for any financial aid. In some cases, this is even true for merit aid, though it generally only applies to need-based aid.
In most cases, we recommend all US citizens and residents apply for FAFSA. This includes students who are covered by DACA. A full list of who is eligible to apply can be found here. Note that international students are not eligible to apply for FAFSA, and should not worry about this. The exception is citizens of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands, who are eligible for FAFSA even if they are not US citizens.
We also want to note that you need to fill out the FAFSA every year you are in college, regardless of whether or not they gave you any aid previously. This is not necessarily a time consuming process, but does still need to get done.
In addition to FAFSA, many colleges require other financial aid disclosure forms, such as the CSS Profile. We go over how they use each of these to determine your financial aid award more in this article.
What’s New in the 2025 FAFSA Application?
In general, the FAFSA is the same as the one they were attempting to roll out last year, with the goal of greatly streamlining and simplifying the process for students and families. FAFSA themselves released a guide to filling out the form, and their goal is to make the process as painless as possible. Though, as is so often the case with government forms, that doesn’t always happen.
We should note that you will be able to import all of your financial information directly from the IRS. We recommend doing this if you have filed federal taxes, as it greatly saves on time. You should also have all needed financial documents on hand when you begin filling out the forms; like going to the DMV, you already want to have your license and proof of insurance on hand, it just makes everything easier.
There are sections of the form for both students and parents; students should fill out their section first. The parental section increases in complexity with the more assets you have; this is part of why importing data from the IRS saves so much time.
While the form has resolved most of the back-end errors which plagued it during its earlier rollout, some do persist, as is so often the case with all-digital forms. If you encounter an unknown error, you often need to clear your browser’s cache and begin again.
How to Make the Most of Your Financial Aid Application
We have a whole article on how to best apply for financial aid strategically, and how to best save for college; in this section we’re going to talk about how to put the FAFSA to work for you, and how to make the most of the application itself.
Our first tip is to be honest. Most people won’t get direct aid from the federal government; the income barriers for that ensure it. Instead, being honest means that colleges will see whether or not you have need, and be able to react accordingly. Many colleges have significantly more generous aid programs than the Pell Grants, especially among top-rated colleges. Thus being accurate with your financial information can win you aid from them, even if it doesn’t from the government.
This can be more generous than many realize; even families earning six figures can receive some aid from top colleges. This does of course depend on the colleges you are applying to, but only in very niche cases would you want to conceal your income from schools, even if you aren’t applying for financial aid.
This is because a significant number of schools take into account your ability to pay, and will slightly advantage students who can pay for the full cost of tuition in the admissions process. This is not true at the very topmost schools, but many of the universities ranked in the top 50 will do this. We discuss this more in our article on need aware and need blind colleges.
Our next tip, and this is a big one, is to apply early. This is for two reasons. The first is that there is a limited pool of federal aid available, and it is distributed on a first come-first served basis. While you may not qualify for aid, why risk applying late, and miss out on something you could have otherwise been granted?
The second is that many colleges use FAFSA when calculating their own financial aid awards, and that the sooner this information gets to them, the sooner they can get back to you with an aid offer. When it comes time to deciding where to attend college, this can be very important, especially if your ability to attend is contingent on an aid award.
This is doubly true if you applied early decision. These applications are binding, with the sole exception of if you cannot afford the tuition of the school. It is therefore important to determine whether or not you will be able to attend based on your aid award before committing. While you will be able to withdraw later depending on the award, this isn’t a good time for anyone involved, and we recommend avoiding it if possible.
Our final tip is to take advantage of the resources that FAFSA themselves offer. They do try to make their service painless to use, even if they don’t always succeed. The resources you can find at the bottom of the page here, and the tips you can find here, are the best place to start when trying to fill out the FAFSA.
Final Thoughts
The FAFSA is a yearly challenge for students and parents alike, but it is often the first step to affording a college tuition. As the price of college grows steadily higher, this is very important. Of course, it is only the first step of a somewhat involved process, and the strategies to maximize your own financial aid awards do not end with filling out the FAFSA alone.
If you want advice on how you can maximize your own chances of financial aid, or which colleges will give you the best scholarship offers, schedule a free consultation with us today. We’ve helped hundreds of students navigate through the byzantine process of applying for aid, and finding the colleges that will best support their educational journeys. We’re always happy to hear from you, and to help you take the next step on your educational journey.
