The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2026-27 school year is available to fill out now after it was made public last week, according to updates on the FAFSA website.
The Oct. 1 deadline for opening the FASFA to students has not been met since 2022 for the 2023-24 academic year. One reason for the delays was the FASFA Simplfication Act which meant to streamline the application process, according to a letter written by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.
Instead of becoming more accessible, the form had more than 40 different technical issues which resulted in a 9% decline in FASFA applications submitted from first-time applicants, based on a U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis.
FAFSA applications started opening to students in October after filing changes made in 2015 which switched the preference from the previous Jan. 1 opening date to “coincide with the college admissions application and decision cycle.” While these changes set the precedent on when students can begin applying for aid, the deadline was still flexible until Jan. 1.
The FAFSA Deadline Act signed by former President Joe Biden in December 2024 changed that flexibility amidst critiques over the delays of previous years. The act now requires the Department of Education to release the form by Oct. 1 or testify to Congress explaining the failure to meet deadline and the financial impact it will have on students.
McMahon said that the 2026-27 FAFSA beta testing program, which allowed some students to file early and report issues in the form, helped the department launch FASFA punctually.
“The FAFSA form is working thanks to the investments and focus that the Trump Administration has placed on technical competence and expertise,” said McMahon’s letter.
The beta testing helped refine the FASFA by catching bugs, refining usability and improving performance, according to the Department of Education. Statistics from Sept. 25 on the Federal Student Aid office’s website show that 97,700 FASFA applications were already submitted with a 97% satisfaction rate received from surveys.
The Department of Education announced in February that the FAFSA was also updated from prior academic years to change the content of questions regarding gender identity. Students are no longer able to choose between the “non-binary” and “prefer not to answer” options that were in FAFSA before.
Changes to the race/ethnicity section of the FAFSA were also made to comply with revisions from 2024 that changed the federal policy on how data including race and ethnicity is managed.
The new FAFSA combines two separate race and ethnicity questions by not asking students whether they identify as Hispanic and including the identity in the question about race instead. Data collected by this question undermined a student’s other racial identities if they identified as Hispanic as well, according to a report by the Institute of Higher Education Policy.
The federal application deadline for the FAFSA is June 30, 2027. In Connecticut, the state deadline for priority consideration is Feb. 15, 2026, according to the Federal Student Aid website.