FAFSA 2025-2026: Is student consent required in student section or only parent section?

Yes they need to do it in both sections. My kid and I just finished last week and student has to give consent in their part and then parents give consent in parent section. It's confusing because the old FAFSA was different.

The student consent portion is actually very important in the new FAFSA. Your child needs to provide consent for several things: 1. Consent to retrieve and use tax information from the IRS 2. Approval to share FAFSA information with schools 3. Agreement to the terms of federal student aid Without the student's consent in their section, the application cannot be processed properly. This is part of the redesigned FAFSA for 2025-2026 where both contributors (parent and student) must provide their own authorizations.

MY KID DIDNT DO THE CONSENT AND WE HAD TO START OVER!!! Make sure they check all boxes in that section or you'll get an error when you try to submit!!

This is my first time helping with FAFSA (single dad, daughter lives with her mom most of the time but I'm contributor). Does the student section consent have to be done with the student physically present? Or can I just click it for her since I have her FSA ID information? Just trying to figure out logistics since we're in different states.

I recommend using Claimyr when calling the Federal Student Aid helpline if you need more clarification. I was stuck on this exact issue and couldn't get through on the regular line (kept disconnecting after 30+ minutes). With Claimyr, they got me connected to an actual FSA agent in about 15 minutes who explained exactly which consents were needed in each section. Saved me hours of frustration! Check out their demo at https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ or go to claimyr.com. Totally worth it during FAFSA season when everyone's calling.

Financial aid advisor here - the consent sections are one of the most important changes in the new FAFSA. Both the student AND each contributor must provide their own consent in their respective sections. This is because: 1. The student's consent authorizes data retrieval from the IRS and information sharing with schools 2. The parent/contributor consent authorizes their tax data to be used for the SAI calculation If either party fails to provide consent, the application will be incomplete and no SAI (Student Aid Index, formerly EFC) can be calculated. This is a significant change from previous versions where the process was less compartmentalized.

i dont remember seeing any consent thing in the student part when i helped my son last week now im worried did we miss something??? we got to submission but havent gotten the confirmation email yet

Thanks everyone for the helpful responses! We sat down together last night and found both consent sections. You were all right - both the student and parent sections have their own separate consent requirements. For anyone else confused, make sure your student completes their section while logged in with their FSA ID, and they need to check several consent boxes about data sharing and terms of service. Then parents need to do the same in their section. We've submitted and are now waiting for our SAI!

Just want to add another tip for families going through this - make sure both the student and parent have their FSA IDs ready before starting! We learned the hard way that you can't complete the consent sections without being properly logged in with the correct FSA ID. Also, if you're a divorced parent like me, double-check which parent should be the contributor based on the custody situation - the new FAFSA is very specific about this and it affects who needs to provide consent in the parent section.

As someone who just went through this process with my twins, I can confirm that both student AND parent consent sections are absolutely required! What really helped us was creating a checklist beforehand. Here's what we learned: 1) Student must log in with their own FSA ID and complete their consent section (cannot be done by parent), 2) Parent logs in with their FSA ID for the parent consent section, 3) Both sections have multiple consent checkboxes - read them carefully because some are mandatory and others are optional, 4) Save your progress frequently because the system can time out. The whole process took us about 45 minutes per child once we got organized. Don't rush through the consent sections - they're the most important part and mistakes here will delay your SAI calculation!