On Aug. 7, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) announced that, on Oct. 1, it will release the 2025–26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) for beta testing with a limited set of students and institutions of higher education (IHEs) as part of a new process in alignment with software industry best practices. The Department will make the FAFSA form available to all students on or before Dec. 1.
Starting today, community-based organizations (CBOs) can submit an interest form for participating in the first beta testing period, Beta 1. Interested CBOs will be required to describe their past FAFSA-related work, as well as their participation and support of FAFSA-related events, their process for hosting a successful FAFSA completion session, potential recruitment efforts, and how they meet other requirements outlined in the form. The deadline for CBOs to submit an interest form is Sept. 5, 2024.
How Beta 1 Will Work
For Beta 1, the Department will select between two and six CBOs; the final number selected will depend on the number of students each organization estimates it can recruit for Beta 1. IHEs that want to participate in Beta 1 are encouraged to partner with a CBO. There will be an opportunity for IHEs to participate independently in upcoming beta periods.
Participating in Beta 1 will require a significant amount of work by CBOs and IHEs, and student Beta participants may encounter issues that will take time to resolve. The best-suited candidates for Beta 1 include CBOs that meet the following criteria:
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The CBO can recruit at least 100 students who are applying to at least one IHE in common. Because many of the students will apply to one IHE in common, both that IHE and the state financial aid agency (if interested in participating) will have a meaningful number of Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) to process and test their software, systems, and processes. The organization may also recruit additional students who are not applying to that IHE.
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The CBO commits to host one or more FAFSA completion sessions—ideally, in conjunction with a high school—on or shortly after Oct. 1.
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The CBO has experience supporting students and contributors in creating StudentAid.gov accounts (username and password) and ensuring all participating students and contributors have verified accounts before the FAFSA completion session.
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The CBO has reached out to an IHE to which many of their students will apply, and the IHE has expressed a willingness to participate in Beta 1 by downloading and reviewing ISIRs processed for the students in Beta 1.
During Beta 1, the Department will work with selected CBOs to support students and contributors as they fill out and submit the 2025–26 FAFSA form. We will also support IHEs as they download and validate ISIRs.
If no CBOs meet all the desired criteria for Beta 1, the Department will select the organizations that will best enable us to test both submission and ISIR processing with a sufficient number of students and a broad range of student types.
We expect to announce the CBOs and IHEs selected to participate in Beta 1 on Sept. 9 and will conduct an orientation session for the selected organizations during the week of Sept. 9. The CBOs will have the rest of September to recruit students and plan one or more FAFSA completion session(s).
IHEs and any relevant state grant agencies will receive ISIRs shortly after the FAFSA forms are submitted during Beta 1. Students will be able to select any institution to receive their FAFSA data, and those IHEs and relevant states will also be able to access those ISIRs after they are processed during Beta 1 regardless of beta testing participation. The Department will share regular updates broadly with all our stakeholders, including information about the bugs that are uncovered and the resolution status of those bugs, so that our partners will have a view into our progress.
Additional rounds of beta testing will invite other organization types to submit an interest form. In the coming weeks, we will provide more information regarding additional beta testing periods.
Contact Information
Any questions about this announcement should be sent to betainterest@ed.gov.