2025-2026 FAFSA

Submit Your FAFSA Application Now!

Important Financial Aid Update

The 2025–26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form is available now on StudentAid.gov, enabling students to apply for financial aid for college attendance between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026. The Department of Education may pause for site maintenance and updates to enhance user experience.

Creating a Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID is a crucial step in the journey toward higher education. This ID grants secure access to federal student aid information and serves as an electronic signature for the FAFSA. With the FSA ID, students can apply for aid, review and sign documents, and access federal student aid websites.

Each contributor, including students, their spouses, and parents, must have their own StudentAid.gov account before completing the FAFSA form. Contributors who don’t have a Social Security number (SSN) can still create a StudentAid.gov account starting from the 2024–25 FAFSA form. After an account has been created please follow How To Submit the 2024-25 FAFSA Form if Your Contributor Doesn’t Have an SSN.

When inviting contributors to fill out the FAFSA form, students must provide their SSN if they have one. Incorrectly indicating that a contributor doesn’t have an SSN can cause delays. Creating an FSA ID is a simple process, and instructions are available on StudentAid.gov. Additionally, guidance is provided for those without an SSN and for those who prefer information in Spanish.

For additional information please refer to StudentAid.gov.

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What’s New?

The 2025–26 FAFSA form broadens federal student aid eligibility, notably the Pell Grant while enhancing user experience. Updates to aid calculations allow 610,000 new low-income students to qualify for Pell Grants. Additionally, applicants may skip up to 26 questions, potentially reducing the application process to under 10 minutes for some.

Have your documents ready.

Be prepared so you can complete your form in one session. You might need the following documents as you fill out the 2025–26 form:

• 2023 Tax returns*
• Records of child support received
• Current balances of cash, savings, and checking accounts
• Net worth of investments, businesses, and farms

*On the 2025–26 form, you’ll be able to provide consent and approval to have most of your financial information imported directly from the IRS, but you should keep your tax return handy for additional questions.

Learn more about what you need to fill out your FAFSA form. If you gather these things in advance, you’ll be able to complete and submit your form quickly. Any contributors you invite to your form will need to provide the same information for themselves.

Have your contributor information ready.

To invite contributors to your FAFSA form, you’ll be asked to provide their

• first and last name,
• SSN (if they have one),
• date of birth, and
• email address (or mailing address, if they don’t have an SSN).

To avoid issues with your FAFSA form, list contributor information exactly as it appears on their Social Security card or legal identification card. Avoid using numbers or extra spaces when entering their name. If the contributor has a suffix in their name (e.g., John Paul Jr., or John Paul III), leave that out of the invitation. Also, if they have a StudentAid.gov account, make sure the personal information you enter exactly matches the information they provided when creating their account.

When you fill out the FAFSA form, you’ll answer questions that will determine who needs to be a contributor on your form. However, you may be able to identify your contributors now to get a head start on collecting the information you’ll need to invite them to your form.

To find out if your parent(s) will be a contributor on your FAFSA form, check out the Is My Parent a Contributor When I Fill Out My FAFSA® Form? infographic.

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Tips for Filling Out the FAFSA Form

You (the student) should complete your section of the form first.

We strongly recommend that you (the student) start the form and complete your section first to save time and prevent errors. When you fill out the student section, you’ll answer questions to determine your dependency status and if anyone else, such as your parent(s), must contribute to your form. If you don’t start the form first, or if you and your contributors are working in your form at the same time, your contributors may have more difficulty completing their section or may even spend time providing information that’s not required.

Starting the form first will also prevent data entry mistakes, such as your parent accidentally entering their own information when they should be entering yours. Once you’ve completed your section, be sure to send invitations to all contributors to your form before saving and exiting.

Read questions and definitions carefully.

There’ve been major updates to the FAFSA form for the 2025–26 award year, and many questions and definitions have changed. When filling out your form, read each question and definition carefully.

Consult in-form resources if you need help.

Use the help text and help articles (accessible via the question mark icon) embedded in the form if you’re not sure how to answer a question. Changing your answers to questions that impact your eligibility for aid may create errors in the form. If you change your answer to any of the following questions, you may need to delete your form and start over to fix the error.

• Marital Status – Options are single (never married), Married (not separated), Remarried, Separated, Divorced, and Widowed. Select your status as of the day the FAFSA form is completed.
• Citizenship – Options are U.S. citizen or national; Eligible noncitizen; and Neither U.S. citizen nor eligible noncitizen. Eligible noncitizens include U.S. nationals (such as natives of American Samoa or Swains Island) and permanent residents. If you indicate you are an eligible noncitizen, you will likely have an A-Number assigned to you, and you will need to provide this number on your form.
• State of Legal Residence – This is typically the state where your permanent address is located. However, each state determines legal residency differently, and you may not be considered a resident of the state if you haven’t lived there for at least five years. You should contact your college’s or career/trade school’s financial aid office for assistance with this question.

Don’t forget to review, sign, and submit the form!

Protect against form glitches or typos by reviewing all of your answers prior to submission. You can review all of the answers you provided in your section on the review page, which you’ll see before you provide your signature. You can view all of the responses by selecting “Expand All” or expanding each section individually. To edit a response, select the question’s hyperlink.

Monitor your form’s status, and don’t forget to submit the FAFSA form after all of your contributors have signed and all sections are completed.

If you’ve been notified that all of your contributors have signed and completed their sections, and your student section is also complete, you should check the sections of your form to ensure that all questions are answered.

• Log in to StudentAid.gov using your account username and password.
• Navigate to your account Dashboard.
• Select “2025–26 FAFSA Form” from the “My Activity” page.
• Once you’ve accessed your form, review the information submitted in each section.
• If all sections are complete and all of your contributors have signed, follow the prompts to submit your form.

Once your application is submitted, you can view all of the information entered on your form, along with a summary of who contributed to your form, on the Summary page (accessed from the “My Activity” page of the account Dashboard).

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What Happens After You Submit

When you submit your completed 2025–26 FAFSA form, you’ll get an email confirming that the Department of Education received your FAFSA with preliminary information related to your eligibility for federal student aid. This will include your estimated Student Aid Index (SAI) and estimated eligibility for Federal Pell Grant.

The Department of Education began processing all received FAFSA applications in April and will be sending Georgia Southern the processed FAFSA within the weeks to follow. Once Georgia Southern University receives your FAFSA information, the Office of Financial Aid will provide you with personalized aid information in May. Until Georgia Southern University receives your FAFSA form, we will not be able to answer questions about your aid eligibility or status.

You can use the FAFSA Submission Summary to review the answers you provided on your form. If you notice any errors, you can start a correction to change your answers at a later time. Learn about how to make FAFSA corrections. The FAFSA Submission Summary will provide your official SAI calculation and Federal Pell Grant eligibility. You can also check the status of your FAFSA form on StudentAid.gov now!

Learn more about the FAFSA Submission Summary here.

The status of your application will be one of the following:

• In Review: You have submitted your form and your application is still processing.
• Processed: Your application was processed successfully. No further action is needed.
• Action Required: Your application requires further action from you or your contributor(s). In some cases, you may need to contact Georgia Southern University’s Office of Financial Aid to resolve the issue.

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2024-2025 FAFSA Updates

FAFSA Form Changes 24-25

The questions that have been removed from the FAFSA effective the 2024-25 award year include, but are not limited to the following:

1. The student’s housing choice
2. The student’s, spouse’s, and parents’ untaxed income that does not appear on the IRS 1040, 1040-SR, or 1040-NR tax return (such as untaxed payments to tax-deferred pension and retirement saving plans represented by IRS Form W-2 Box 12 codes D, E, F, G, H, and S; housing, food, and other living allowances paid to members of the military, clergy, and others; etc.)
3. The student’s interest in Federal Work-Study (FWS) employment
4. Taxable earnings from need-based employment (such as need-based employment portions of fellowships and assistantships)
5. Excluded income for the student, spouse, and parents. This includes other income items that have been reported under “Additional Financial Information” on the FAFSA and excluded from need analysis in prior years (such as taxable combat pay, special combat pay, and cooperative education program earnings). Child support received is still reported but as assets rather than income.
6. The student’s driver’s license number and state
7. The highest school completed by the student’s parents. This question now asks whether either parent attended college.
8. The college degree or certificate a student will be working on when they begin the award year
9. Whether the student or parent filed IRS Schedule 1
10. The dislocated worker question

The FAFSA Simplification Act specifies which questions can be asked on the FAFSA and prohibits the U.S. Department of Education (ED) from asking FAFSA questions that are unnecessary for Title IV federal student aid.

FAFSA Contributor Changes 24-25

A contributor is anyone who is asked to provide information on an applicant’s FAFSA including:

• The student
• The student’s spouse (if applicable)
• A biological or adoptive parent; or
• The spouse of a remarried parent who is on the FAFSA–the stepparent

The new FAFSA is student-driven, so that means the student’s answers in their section will determine who will be a contributor (in addition to the student). Students will need the contributor’s name, date of birth, Social Security Number (SSN), and email address to invite them to complete the required portion of the FAFSA. Contributors will need to provide personal and financial information on their section of the FAFSA.

All contributors are required to have an FSA ID and to provide consent to have their Federal Tax Information (FTI) transferred from the IRS, have their tax data used to determine a student’s eligibility for federal student aid, and allow the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to share their tax information with institutions and state higher education agencies for the administration of Title IV aid. Consent is provided once for the award year and cannot be revoked in that award year. This consent is necessary even if the contributor does not have an SSN, did not file taxes, or filed taxes in another country.

If a dependent student’s parents are unmarried and living together, both parents will be contributors, will need to have separate FSA IDs, and need to provide consent. Dependent students whose parents filed their U.S. income tax return as Married Filing Jointly only require one parent contributor to complete the FAFSA. If the student’s parents filed separately, both parents will be considered contributors and therefore need separate FSA IDs, and both must provide consent.

If an independent student is married and filed separately, both individuals are contributors, must have FSA IDs, and must provide consent for the student to be eligible for Title IV aid.

Parent of Record Starting 24-25

Effective the 2024-25 award year, the parent of record on the FAFSA is noted below. You will notice that the parent with whom the student lived the most in the past 12 months prior to filing the FAFSA, is no longer a criterion in cases of divorced or separated parents. For divorced or separated parents, income and assets are reported on the parent who provides the most financial support even if the student does not live with that parent or lives with the other parent.

Parental Income on 24-25 FAFSA

• Parents who live together
  Parental income and assets in the case of students whose parents are married and not separated, or who are unmarried but live together, shall include the income and assets of both parents.
• Divorced or separated parents
  Parental income and assets for a student whose parents are divorced or separated, but not remarried, are determined by including only the income and assets of the parent who provides the greater portion of the student’s financial support.
• Death of a parent
  Parental income and assets in the case of the death of any parent is determined as follows:
  (A) If either of the parents has died, the surviving parent shall be considered a single parent, until that parent has remarried.
  (B) If both parents have died, the student shall not report any parental income or assets.
• Remarried parents
  If a parent whose income and assets are taken into account under paragraph (2), or if a parent who is a widow or widower and whose income is taken into account under paragraph (3), has remarried, the income of that parent’s spouse shall be included in determining the parent’s assessment of adjusted available income if the student’s parent and the stepparent are married as of the date of application for the award year concerned.
• Single parent who is not divorced or separated
  Parental income and assets in the case of a student whose parent is not described in paragraph (1) and is a single parent who is not divorced, separated, or remarried, shall include the income and assets of such single parent.”

IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT) Replaced

The IRS DRT will be replaced with the Direct Data Exchange (DDX).

• EVERYONE (students, spouses (if applicable), and parents) will need to consent to have their Federal Tax Information (FTI) imported into the FTI module.
• To provide consent, the individual will need to access the FAFSA with an FSA ID that has been matched with the Social Security Administration (SSA).
• Federal tax filers will have their tax information imported into the FTI module. No tax income will transfer into the FAFSA, but tax data will be sent to the colleges listed on the FAFSA.
• Non-tax filers must also check the box to consent. When IRS Data is accessed, the process will verify non-filing status.

Benefits to Students, Families, and Borrowers

The Student Aid Index (SAI) will replace the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) on the FAFSA form. Students and families will see a different measure of their ability to pay for college and experience a change in the methodology used to determine aid.

In addition to the SAI, the FAFSA Simplification Act will expand the Federal Pell Grant to more students and link eligibility to family size and the federal poverty level. New eligibility formulas and funding are estimated to increase Pell Grant recipients by nearly 15%. Incarcerated students will regain the ability to receive a Pell Grant, and Pell Grant lifetime eligibility will be restored to students whose school closed while they were enrolled, or were subject to a false certification, identity theft, or a borrower defense loan discharge.

Accessibility to the FAFSA has been expanded to the top 11 languages spoken by English learners in the U.S.- Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Arabic, Korean, Russian, German, Haitian, and Hindi.

Siblings in College

No benefit for having siblings in college: Previously, the FAFSA divided the EFC proportionally based on the number of household members in college. The elimination of this “sibling discount” will be the biggest change in aid eligibility for some students. The SAI will not use the number in college as a factor in the calculation of eligibility. As such, Georgia Southern University students with siblings in college may see a change in their aid eligibility at Georgia Southern University as well as with the aid received by their sibling(s) at Georgia Southern University or elsewhere. The determination to no longer consider the number in college was made by Congress and can only be changed by Congress.

Pell Grant Eligibility

Pell Grant eligibility will be determined in three steps:

1. Maximum Pell Grant – Applicants may qualify for a Maximum Pell Grant based on family size, adjusted gross income (AGI), and poverty guidelines. Students qualifying for a Maximum Pell Grant will have an SAI between negative $1,500 (-$,1500) and $0.

2. Student Aid Index (SAI) – Applicants who do not qualify for a Maximum Pell Grant may still qualify if their calculated SAI is less than the maximum Pell Grant award for the award year. The applicant’s Pell Grant award for full-time enrollment will be equal to the maximum Pell Grant for the award year minus SAI. The Pell Grant will be adjusted (prorated) if an applicant enrolls in less than full time, or if the applicant’s Cost of Attendance (COA) is less than the calculated Pell Grant award.

3. Minimum Pell Grant – Applicants whose SAI is greater than the maximum Pell Grant award for the award year may still qualify for a Pell Grant, based on family size, AGI, and poverty guidelines.

• Non- Filers – Independent student (and spouse, if applicable) tax non-filers and dependent children of non-filing parent (s)
• Children of certain deceased veterans and public safety officers- Students under age 33 whose parent died in the armed forces after September 11, 2001, and or students under age 33 whose parent (s) died in the line of duty as a public safety officer

Automatic Pell Grants based on income household and size: Families making less than 175% and single parents making less than 225% of the federal poverty level will see their students receive a maximum Federal Pell Grant award. Minimum Pell Grants will be guaranteed to students from households below 275%, 325%, 350%, or 400% of the federal poverty level, depending on household structure. Pell awards between the maximum and minimum amounts will be determined by SAI.

Once the annual Federal Pell Grant is determined, half of the award will be offered in each semester of the award year and will be prorated by Enrollment Intensity instead of Enrollment Levels.

Year-Round Pell Grant

Previously, a Pell Grant-eligible student must have been enrolled at least half-time in a payment period during which they received more than 100% of their scheduled award. Beginning with the 2024-2025 award year, half-time enrollment is no longer required.

Family Farms and Small Businesses

Inclusion of family farms or small businesses: When required, families will now report the value of their farms or businesses. While this inclusion continues to be debated in Congress, it will be required to be reported for appropriate families on the 2024-25 FAFSA and can influence the SAI.

Unusual Circumstances

Students with unusual circumstances are defined as:

A student for whom a financial aid administrator makes a documented determination of independence by reason of unusual circumstances, which prevent the student from contacting parents. These circumstances could include—

• human trafficking, as described in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (22 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.)
• legally granted refugee or asylum status and are separate from their parents, or their parents are displaced in a foreign country
• parental abandonment or estrangement and have not been adopted
• abusive or threatening environment or
• student or parental incarceration and contact with parents would pose a risk to the student.

Other students will continue to qualify as independent on their FAFSA form and are not required to provide parental information if they:

• Are active-duty military
• Are a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces
• Were an orphan, ward of the court, or in foster care at the age of 13 or older
• Are or were a legally emancipated minor or in legal guardianship as determined by a court in the student’s state of legal residence or
• Are a student unaccompanied and either homeless or self-supporting and at risk of being homeless

Starting with the 2024-25 Award Year, both first-time and renewal applicants who indicate on their FAFSA form that they have an unusual circumstance will be granted provisional independent status. They will be able to complete the form without providing parental information. They will also receive an estimate of their federal student aid eligibility, which will be subject to a final determination by the institution they attend. If a student’s institution approves their unusual circumstances, their independent status will carry over when they renew their FAFSA form in future award years, and they will be considered independent for as long as they remain at the same institution and their circumstances remain unchanged.

Additional information can be found at StudentAid.gov