The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) announced in early January that students and families can now access the redesigned 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Students and their families can use the form to apply for federal financial aid to attend college between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025.
Starting in February, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will hold FAFSA Fridays—a series of in-person and online workshops to assist current and prospective students and their families with filling out the form. UTC will release exact times and locations soon.
UTC expects to receive FAFSA information on students by late January. The first round of merit-based scholarship offers, including the Chancellor’s, Provost’s and Mocs scholarships, have been extended for new students. UTC estimates that full financial aid packages—including Pell Grants, the HOPE Scholarship, student loans and other aid—will be completed in late spring.
DOE released the new FAFSA in late December but paused access for technical updates and site improvements. The form will now be continuously available, except for routine maintenance. More than one million students had already accessed the 2024-25 FAFSA form at the time of the department’s Jan. 8 press release.
DOE: New FAFSA Expands Aid Eligibility and Streamlines Experience
The new 2024–25 FAFSA expands eligibility for federal student aid, helping an estimated 610,000 more students get Federal Pell Grants, according to the department.
The new FAFSA also provides a streamlined user experience; applicants now only see relevant questions based on the answers they provide. For example, applicants will be able to skip as many as 26 questions, depending on their individual circumstances.
While the new FAFSA is expected to take around an hour on average for applicants, some could answer as few as 18 questions in less than 10 minutes.
The 2024–25 FAFSA form also notably includes the ability to retrieve tax information securely directly from the IRS, improving the user experience and reducing time to complete. Students and their contributors (parents and spouses) must provide consent and approval to have their federal tax information transferred directly into the 2024–25 FAFSA form via a secure, direct data exchange with the IRS. According to the department, this simplifies the process of accessing tax information for as many as four million additional students and families, particularly for families with low incomes who are not required to file tax returns to confirm such status.
The changes are part of the department’s implementation of the bipartisan FUTURE Act and FAFSA Simplification Act.
