In case you missed it, this week H.R. 8932, the FAFSA Deadline Act, was signed into law. It gives students, families, and schools much-needed clarity by ensuring the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is fully operational by October 1 each year.
The FAFSA is designed to make postsecondary education accessible and affordable for countless students across the United States. But the Biden-Harris administration’s bungling sabotaged that goal.
Here's some of the Biden-Harris administration’s greatest FAFSA misses:
As early as November 2022, the Department refused to commit to the traditional October 1 release of the 2024-2025 application.
Six months later, the Department finally admitted that the FAFSA would be delayed until “sometime in December.” A year after the Department was first asked – on November 15, 2023 – it finally admitted that it would be released on December 31.
On December 15, the Department attempted to skirt the intent of the law (and required release date of January 1) by announcing a “soft launch” of the application.
When the FAFSA finally was released in a “soft launch,” the form encountered numerous technical issues, including lengthy waiting times, sporadic closures of the online form, and software errors. Some problems with the form took months to address, forcing some students to begin this fall semester without fully knowing whether they could afford college. Some elected not to go at all.
Processing of completed FAFSAs was delayed for months. Once processing finally began, millions contained calculation errors—rendering them useless for schools and requiring reprocessing. FAFSA delays forced schools and states across the nation to push back deadlines, causing increased uncertainty for fall enrollment.
In addition to these glaring failures, the Biden-Harris administration took advantage of the current “flexibility” in statute so it could release the FAFSA as late as January 1. This caused confusion for schools and families, making it difficult for states and nonprofits to process aid packages or award scholarships. Students either couldn’t afford college or enrolled blindly without knowing how much they would need to pay.
Bottom line: By creating a hard deadline of October 1, Republicans delivered for families and schools so botched FAFSA rollouts come to an end.
