Federal Student Aid (FSA) processes more than 17.6 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms each year to help students pay for college and provide students with approximately $120.8 billion in grant, work-study, and loan funds. The FAFSA Simplification Act of 2021 required FSA to overhaul its systems and processes to implement a streamlined 2024-2025 FAFSA process. FSA's launch of the 2024-2025 FAFSA was plagued by multiple system implementation issues that prevented students and families from successfully applying for financial aid within critical timeframes. As a result, FSA developed actions to improve the 2025-2026 FAFSA process and increase transparency and communication. The objective of this review was to describe FSA's plans to solicit, analyze, and incorporate feedback from students, families, institutions of higher education, and other stakeholders for the completion, submission, and processing of the 2025-2026 FAFSA. To achieve this objective, the Office of Inspector General interviewed U.S. Department of Education (Department) officials from the offices of the Under Secretary and FSA and reviewed documentation supporting FSA's actions to improve the FAFSA process by incorporating the feedback received. The authors found that although FSA did not have a formal plan with specific details about how it would solicit, analyze, and incorporate the feedback it received regarding the completion, submission, and processing of the 2025-2026 FAFSA, FSA and the Department established multiple channels of communication for receiving feedback. The positive practices FSA implemented to improve the 2025-2026 FAFSA process were reflected when on November 18, 2024, FSA was able to make the 2025-2026 FAFSA available online for all students to apply for financial aid, ahead of the originally scheduled date of December 1, 2024. As of January 30, 2025, 5.8 million students have submitted a 2025-2026 FAFSA. The Office of Inspector General recommended that FSA continue to solicit, analyze, and incorporate feedback regarding the completion, submission, and processing of the 2025-2026 FAFSA until FSA confirms that issues with the FAFSA process have been resolved, and ensure that when the FAFSA process undergoes significant revisions in subsequent award years, FSA use the positive practices it implemented for soliciting and incorporating feedback in the 2025-2026 FAFSA process.
