After a three-month delay of the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) 2024-25 rollout, the 2025-26 form officially opened on Dec. 1, 2024 with fewer holdups, according to Dede Gonzales, Texas State’s assistant vice president for Financial Aid and Scholarships.
Though the 2024-25 form had many issues, such as lack of communication from the Department of Education and inaccurate aid estimates, Gonzales said Texas State has processed over 21,000 2025-26 FAFSA applications since the form became available.
“While [the FAFSA] was slightly delayed, it’s far better than last year,” Gonzales said.
The 2025-26 form, initially slated to open on Oct. 1, was not made available to students until Nov. 21—and even then, only in beta testing. This meant it was available to everyone but still being monitored for issues and improvements. From Oct. 1 to Nov. 20, 2024, the new form went through four gradually expanding beta testing periods with a final nationwide total of 223,163 student participants.
This year’s form marked an improvement compared to the 91 day delay experienced during the 2024-25 cycle, with the form delayed by 51 days for 2025-26.
Even with the improved 2025-26 process, students may still face issues with the FAFSA due to mitigating factors, such as the loss of a job. According to Gonzales, the financial aid office can assist with these circumstances through TXST One Stop by re-evaluating the amount of aid that students are awarded.
OneStop launched less than a year ago and answers for four offices: financial aid, billing office, student business services and undergraduate admissions and registrar.
“When a student doesn’t know which office they need to call if they have questions, you used to have to know to ask separate questions before and call those separate offices,” Gonzales said. “Now a student just calls one stop and they’re holistic, so they can answer all of those even before you knew to ask them.”
Gonzales encouraged students to fill out the FAFSA as soon as they can. The priority deadline is Feb. 15 and the final deadline is June 30.
“It’s better this year, so don’t be afraid to do it, and do it early,” Gonzales said. “We’re already ready to take them and process them, so fill them out early.”
The 2024-25 delay was largely due to the issues with the FAFSA Simplification Act, which involved several overhauls to the 40-year-old formula.
Gonzales said while the 2024-25 FAFSA was difficult for students, it also weighed on university staff.
“The reason we’re in financial aid, the reason we do what we do, is to help people achieve their goals and go to school,” Gonzales said. “We got in situations where we couldn’t help them either, so it was back and forth between the federal government. But, fortunately, we are not seeing that this year.”
Despite FAFSA-related issues looming on the fall 2024 semester, Texas State did not experience a decrease in enrollment. According to a September 2024 statement, the university observed an increase of 1,805 students, or 4.6%, from fall 2023 to 2024. 3,750 of the new freshmen received merit-based scholarships, and over 46% were Pell Grant eligible.
Additionally, Gonzales said students can apply for scholarships in the Bobcat Online Scholarship System (BOSS) to get the most aid possible. The BOSS application can be used to apply for multiple scholarships at once.
Jorge Martinez-Lopez, computer science and psychology senior, spoke on his experience with both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 FAFSA forms.
“It was a little easier, because this time, they had information on file from last year. So, they were able to just kind of carry that over,” Martinez-Lopez said. “This time it went a lot smoother, I was able to finish it [in one] day.”
The 2024-25 FAFSA form presented issues for students with parents who are not U.S. citizens to complete, due to the lack of an option to add a guardian who does not have a Social Security number.
“My biggest concern [with 2024-25] was if they were going to ask my mom’s citizenship status because my mom’s not a U.S. citizen,” Martinez-Lopez said. “Even though my dad’s a citizen, it was still very difficult.”
Martinez-Lopez said completing last year’s FAFSA involved reaching out to multiple government agencies, such as the IRS and the Department of Education.
According to Federal Student Aid (FSA), the 2025-26 FAFSA form accelerates several processes. The FSA website now has a tool to help students figure out if their parent qualifies to fill out the FAFSA, solving problems for students with non-citizen parents.
“We modernized FSA by bringing on new leadership and experts in IT project development as well as strengthening our project and program management protocols to ensure contractor accountability for meeting key deadlines and achieving results,” FSA wrote.
According to Gonzales, Texas State gave out a total of over $423 million in financial aid in 2024, with this number expected to increase in 2025.
