FAFSA timeline confusion - is it for Sept 2024 or 2025 academic year?

The current FAFSA (2024-2025) is for the academic year that begins in Fall 2024 and goes through Spring/Summer 2025. You're absolutely right that in previous years, we could start filing in October for the following academic year. However, this year was different because of the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation. The 2024-2025 FAFSA wasn't released until December 30, 2023 (and even then with lots of glitches) instead of the usual October 1 opening. This is the form you need for your senior year if you're starting in Fall 2024. Regarding deadlines, while the federal deadline is typically in June, most schools have much earlier priority deadlines for maximum aid consideration - often in February or March. I would check your specific school's financial aid website for their priority deadline, as you don't want to miss out on institutional aid which is often first-come, first-served.

OMG ME TOO!!! I thought I was the only one confused! I kept waiting for the FAFSA to open in October like normal and then suddenly in January my advisor was like "why haven't you done your FAFSA yet" and I had NO IDEA it had changed!!! This whole new system is driving me CRAZY. The website keeps crashing on me and my parents can't figure out how to do the contributor stuff. We've been trying for WEEKS!!!

To clarify a bit further: The 2024-2025 FAFSA is for the academic year running from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025. Most students think of this as their Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters. The delay this year was a one-time thing because they completely redesigned the system. In the future, they should return to the October 1 opening date, with the 2025-2026 FAFSA (for Fall 2025) opening on October 1, 2024. One important thing to note - even though the federal deadline is June 30, 2025, most colleges have priority deadlines much earlier. For example, many state grant programs have deadlines in February or March 2024 for this cycle. And some schools operate on first-come, first-served for certain aid types, so earlier is always better.

I've been trying to reach someone at Federal Student Aid for three weeks to sort out my application issues with the new system. After countless disconnected calls and hours on hold, I finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to a real person. They got me a callback within 30 minutes! The agent was able to explain the timeline confusion and help with my contributor access issues. They have a demo video at https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ that shows how it works. Honestly saved me so much frustration trying to figure out these deadline changes.

im so done with this new fafsa thing. the old one was easy this ones a nightmare. and yeah its for 2024-2025 school year which is this coming fall. the whole timeline is messed up cuz they launched late. my school sent like 5 reminder emails already saying we need to submit asap cuz they cant give out financial aid packages until they get our fafsa results

Just a heads-up for everyone in this thread - many schools have had to push back their financial aid notification dates because of the FAFSA delays. If you're waiting on your aid package, you might receive it later than in previous years. Many colleges that typically sent aid packages in March/April are now looking at April/May timeframes. This means you might have less time to compare offers before making a decision if you're an incoming freshman. The Department of Education is now sending SAI (Student Aid Index) calculations to schools, but there was a significant backlog. Better late than never, but definitely a challenging year for everyone involved in the process!

I just wanted to update that I contacted my school's financial aid office directly - they said their priority deadline was March 1st, but they're still accepting FAFSAs and processing aid. The counselor told me that because of all the FAFSA delays this year, they're being more flexible with deadlines. So if anyone else is in my position and worried they missed deadlines, it's worth checking directly with your school!

i did mine in january and still havent gotten my sai sent to my school yet. this new system is terrible!

does anyone know if the october deadline is coming back next year? or is december the new normal?