Carson High School counselor Bridget Gordon-Johnson assists junior Betsy Campbell-Richards with her U.S. Department of Education Free Application for Federal Student Aid form.
Photo by Jessica Garcia.
Wrinkles in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid have been ironed out to help improve the user experience.
Technical difficulties and glitches last year with the 2024-25 form that should have gone out in October 2023 have been resolved for 2025-26, Carson High counselor Bridget Gordon-Johnson said. Last year’s application was delayed until Dec. 31 to correct mistakes that plagued the system.
“We were expecting a Dec. 1 opening (this year), and then (the federal government) ran it as a beta test with people across the nation for a while,” Gordon-Johnson said. “But all the bugs had been worked out. So they opened it before Thanksgiving, which was kind of awesome, and we were notified by our community partners and our college partners about it the day that it opened.”
The U.S. Department of Education officially released the form Nov. 21 and made it available at www.fafsa.gov. It went through four rounds of testing and communicated with various colleges, universities, software vendors, state agencies and federal partners to ensure it worked with systems.
More than 40 technical errors with last year’s FAFSA mounted. The application hindered parents who lacked Social Security numbers to fill it out or create an account. Some could not assist their child who began an account of their own. Students with two last names, hyphenated names or those that were 12 characters or longer would not be accepted.
The delays resulted in a 9% decline in first-time FAFSA applications completed and turned in, according to the Government Accountability Office. By August, there had been a drop in approximately 432,000 applications across the nation. The deferments caused higher education institutions to provide later financial offers to applicants who relied on acceptance letters to make decisions for enrollment.
President Joe Biden on Dec. 10 signed into law the FAFSA Deadline Act, a measure requiring the U.S. Department of Education to launch the form annually by Oct. 1. This previously was a soft date since the agency legally had until Jan. 1.
As of Dec. 12, the U.S. Department of Education already had received more than 1.5 million 2025-26 applications.
The FAFSA asks for information about the student’s demographics and dependency status, parent information or what to do if the student does not have access to it and for a family’s 2023 tax information. It will address questions about special circumstances should a student be a ward of the state or live with a legal guardian who is not a parent. Student financial questions pertain to whether he or she owns real estate. For students who are unaccompanied or homeless, there is a separate question, which Gordon-Johnson said is beneficial.
“It’s a new thing because then what it does is it allows those students that are in McKinney-Vento program essentially to end the FAFSA then and then the McKinney-Vento liaison gives them a letter,” she said.
Carson High junior Betsy Campbell-Richards applied on Dec. 10 for the first time and experienced a smooth process this year under Gordon-Johnson’s direction, who spoke of the updates and ease.
“That was really easy,” Campbell-Richards said afterward. “(All the questions) made sense, and I think even if you didn’t understand from the first title, if you read more and do it, you could understand it.”
She is graduating early as a senior and will start as a freshman at the University of Nevada, Reno in the fall and wants to become a physician assistant.
Gordon-Johnson said with the new FAFSA, there have been no hangups for Carson High to this point among students.
“One had an undocumented parent and it was still as quick as it needed to be,” she said. “I just think they rolled it out probably too soon last year.”
Gordon-Johnson said Carson High’s goal would be to have the school’s approximate 500 seniors this year to apply, knowing it’s a likely expectation that about 300 to 350 will submit. The school also encourages students to apply for the Nevada Promise Scholarship established by the Nevada Legislature covering tuition or fees otherwise not provided for by federal or state aid for up to three years. But students still have to complete the FAFSA as a requirement.
“WNC and TMCC (Truckee Meadows Community College) have multiple trade school options, like auto mechanics and welding, and so with the Nevada Promise (scholarship) that’s completely free, we really try and push as many of our seniors that aren’t enlisting in the military or going straight to some kind of career that they have set up, maybe with an apprenticeship or something, to do it,” she said. “So really, we would like all 500 seniors to apply.”