The Department of Education announced on Thursday the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms are officially available for all students and families, 10 days ahead of schedule following last year's chaotic rollout of the revamped forms.  The department originally expected to launch the FAFSA forms on Dec. 1 after beta testing that started on Oct. 1. "I'm pleased to announce that after four successful rounds of beta testing, the 2025–26 FAFSA form is now available to all students and families,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “After months of hard work and lots of feedback from students, schools, and other stakeholders, we can say with confidence that FAFSA is working and will serve as the gateway to college access and affordability to millions of students.”  During the four rounds of testing, the department processed more than 140,000 applications and sent them to more than 5,200 schools. Officials are confident the full rollout will be successful as they will be using the same process for all students’ applications as they did during the beta testing period.   FAFSA executive adviser Jeremy Singer said no critical bugs were found during beta testing, but smaller issues were identified and fixed.  “An example, there were cases where students were stalled on certain pages on the application. Clearing the browser cache would have solved the problem, but they had no way of knowing that. We knew the bug was out there, but we didn't know what the root cause was, and during beta testing, by sitting side by side with students or engineers, we were able to observe a diagnosis issue. Now it is fixed,” Singer said.   The federal agency also announced it “significantly increased staffing” to the FAFSA contact center and will add even more employees in the coming weeks, so students and families have the support they need.  Singer said there could be longer wait times on Thursday due to the increase in visits after the announcement the applications are open, but he does not expect it to last, especially with the extra staffing.  Officials stress the importance of parents and students to create Federal Student Aid (FSA) identification "as soon as possible," as it takes time to process FSA IDs and it is needed to complete the FAFSA forms. The new FAFSA form comes after the messy rollout of the application for the 2024-25 year, which was delayed by almost three months.   Once the forms were released, several bugs were discovered, and some schools did not receive the information they needed about potential students’ financial situations until March or April and had to delay their decision days for applicants.   “Already, over 650,000 more applicants are eligible for Pell Grants, and more students are receiving Pell Grants, this school year compared to last year. We stand ready to help millions more students complete the FAFSA and get the financial aid they need to pursue their dreams of a college education,” Cardona said.   Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said Thursday the department is prepared to release FAFSA forms on the normal timeline next year, opening all applications on Oct. 1.  The announcement comes the same day a bill is headed to the president’s desk that mandates FAFSA forms are available on Oct. 1 every year.