Both students and parents may experience anxiety when applying to colleges. It might all seem too much to handle when you factor in the additional difficulty of financing college. Fortunately, you are not alone. For further help and direction about the admissions and financial aid processes, high school seniors and their families can consult with guidance counsellors, admissions personnel, and faculty leaders.
Applying for financial help via FAFSA, is one of the most popular steps taken by students to help them secure money for their education. Here i will explain you on FAFSA Application 2024 Changes and you must check this page to know more on FAFSA Application 2024 New Rules.
FAFSA Application 2024 Changes
A few changes have been made to the 529 college savings plan for the 2024 program, which will make it a more useful instrument for saving money for education. The USD 35,000 in leftover savings in the plan would be transferred tax-free into Roth individual retirement accounts. This lessens worries that money that is not being spent may be taxed or remain stranded indefinitely.
The so-called “grandparent loophole” was created by the Department of Education after it took a closer look at the FAFSA. This makes it possible for grandparents to support their grandchild’s education using a 529 plan without compromising the student’s eligibility for financial aid.
When will my FAFSA application be updated?
Visit FAFSA.gov to get the updated FAFSA for the 2024–25 school year. Following significant delays, families and students who submitted inaccurate or incomplete FAFSA applications may begin the process of making repairs on April 16. The FAFSA for 2023–24 is still available until June 30, 2024.
The new rules or changes to apply this year
- The person who submits information on the new FAFSA are referred to as “contributors.” This might apply to one or both of the student’s biological or adoptive parents, the spouse of the parent, and the student. To log in and finish their section of the form, each donor requires a different FSA ID, which is their StudentAid.gov login and password.
- Now, there are certain changes for divorced parents and the parent who contributed the most to the student’s financial aid during the previous year will be the FAFSA contributor beginning with the 2024–2025 form. If this parent married again and does not file jointly, their spouse have to make tax contributions. The parent with whom the student lived most of the time was the one whose financial information was used by the FAFSA in previous years, regardless of who was the primary provider of financial assistance.
- To enable the IRS to integrate federal tax data directly into the FAFSA, all contributors must consent. Families won’t have to go through their tax returns for the information and manually enter it thanks to the “direct data exchange,” which should make the form easier to complete. Even while the student can still file their FAFSA, they will not be qualified for federal student aid if any contributor objects to this procedure.
- A few states have created their own financial assistance system, apart from the federal one. To expedite the process, some state aid forms in seven states extract certain data straight from a student’s FAFSA but for 2024–2025, students in these states will not be able to auto-populate their financial aid applications because of the FAFSA delays and changes. Remember to monitor the deadlines for your state’s and your university’s financial aid.
- The Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is replaced by the Student assistance Index (SAI) to know a student’s ability to pay for college and the overall amount of monetary help that they are eligible for.
- Free, non-repayable college help is provided to students through the need-based Pell Grant program. According to the U.S. Department of Education, around 609,000 more low-income students will be eligible for Pell Grants using the new FAFSA algorithm than they would have under the previous form.
- Only English and Spanish were offered for the FAFSA in previous years. More students and their families may now use the new FAFSA since it is available in the 11 most widely spoken languages in the United States.
- There are far fewer questions on the updated FAFSA. As per students condition, some students will only need to respond to 18 questions on the new form; earlier FAFSA had up to 103 questions.
- For 2024–2025, prospective students may now identify up to 20 universities on their FAFSA, as opposed to just 10 in prior years. A copy of the data you enter on the FAFSA will be automatically sent to the colleges you designate, so they may use it to determine your financial aid amount.
- Having many children enrolled in college at the same time no longer carries a discount for parents. The item about additional family members attending college is still there on the new FAFSA, but it will not be taken into account for determining federal financial assistance. However, some universities could take this into account when calculating institutional aid.