FAFSA launch with new changes in 2024

The 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form became available on Dec. 31, 2023 with some modifications to make the application process easier for students and families.

Julie Poorman, director of Financial Aid at ECU, said FAFSA is the one way U.S. citizens and permanent residents get into consideration for the Pell Grant, Supplemental Grant, student loans and work study.

“What we're really talking about is changes to the federal law that created the financial aid programs in 1965,” Poorman said. “The law is changed every few years and this year one of the things they changed was the formula that resides inside the FAFSA.”

Families will now be required to link to the IRS under the FAFSA Simplification Act, Poorman said, the act also requires non-biological parents to sign the application in addition to the student and the biological parent.

Poorman said the FAFSA Expected Family Contribution (EFC), which is an analysis that helps determine students’ eligibility for aid, will be renamed to the Student Aid Index (SAI) and will consider family assets again in their calculation.

“They're no longer giving a discount to how many children you have in college at the same time,” Poorman said. “And so we don't know exactly what that's going to look like, we are waiting like everybody else in the United States for the data.”

Kevin Sutton, director of the Financial Wellness Hub at ECU, said many people had difficulty accessing the form upon its initial release. He said FAFSA anticipated this and had a “planned maintenance” to keep the application up.

The new FAFSA claims to increase eligibility to more students for the Pell Grant, Sutton said, which is financial aid that students do not have to pay back.

“I know that they simplified the application,” Sutton said. “So it's about, I believe like one third as long as it used to be.”

Sutton said the application will be more straightforward than ever before. He said it takes some people only between 10-15 minutes to finish the form, which is significantly faster.

Things are always subject to change, Sutton said, as the government wants to go back to opening the FAFSA application during the start of October.

“I would just trust whatever studentaid.gov has out there,” Sutton said. “Those would be the resources I would direct people to just because that's official.”

Kay Kaw, junior accounting major at UNC Charlotte, said FAFSA's main goal for these new changes is to make it more approachable for people.

One thing students and families need to know is they must provide consent and approval to be eligible for aid, Kaw said, this is an important step that cannot be skipped.

“I think FAFSA is a good resource because it provides people with much needed aid from the government,” Kaw said. “It makes going to college possible for people.”

Kaw said he has been filling out the FAFSA application by himself for two years now and the information required after the new changes isn’t as much compared to other years.

It’s still a good idea to set aside time to finish the application, Kaw said, as well as checking with contributors to make sure you have all the necessary information.

“I personally feel indifferent about the changes,” Kaw said. “I just want to complete the form as fast as possible because it's something that's required.”

Kaw said the recent modifications to FAFSA ultimately makes the application process more streamline. He said people who have filled out the application in the past will greatly appreciate the update.