For high school seniors, fall brings excitement as they form plans to enter college or the workforce. But for students choosing college, that isn’t all fun and games. Instead, they face the daunting task of completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or “FAFSA,” to access loans and scholarships.

While required for college financial assistance, FAFSA is known for being notoriously complex—so complex, in fact, that in 2020, Congress mandated changes to streamline the form. That meant it was the Biden Department of Education’s job to revamp and simplify the process, helping families in the process.

Instead, the department’s efforts were a complete disaster, providing a textbook example of government incompetence.

First, it failed to deliver the FAFSA website by October, when most students typically begin applying. The supposedly improved FAFSA website only went live at the end of December, and even then, only in 30-minute increments. By January, the Department of Education still wasn’t processing applications, and by May, colleges were forced to extend their decision deadlines.

The following fall, Government Accountability Office experts Marisol Cruz Cain and Melissa Emrey-Arras offered devastating testimony about the botched FAFSA rollout before the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. They reported that approximately four million calls to the department’s call center went unanswered in the first five months, and 40 known technical issues plagued the application process, leaving families stranded without clear guidance or solutions.

This is exactly what happens when a bloated bureaucracy promises more than it can competently deliver.

It wasn’t just families who were affected. Colleges, too, were left in the dark. The department missed deadlines to deliver FAFSA data to schools. For some universities, this meant the possibility of financial instability due to the drop in enrollment.

The 2023 FAFSA rollout was also a catastrophic failure of government management, as the form launch date was moved back months and was crippled by technical failures, leaving students and families in limbo, frustrated, and uncertain.

That year also saw a drop in the number of high school seniors completing FAFSA. The National College Attainment Network reported that in May 2024, only about 38% of high school seniors had completed a FAFSA, representing a nearly 21% decrease from the prior academic year.

The previous administration’s failures lay in its misplaced priorities.

It was preoccupied with its unconstitutional scheme to cancel student debt—in turn spoiling the FAFSA rollout. Washington chose politics over competence, and families paid the price.

What a world of difference two years makes for families.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has already sent a letter to Congress certifying that the 2026-2027 FAFSA form will launch on time, October 1st, as the law requires. In her words: “Congress gave us a mandate to improve the form and deliver it on time for students, families, and institutions of higher education – and I am proud to certify that the form will launch on time this fall.”

That promise is being backed up with action.

Last month, the department conducted a nationwide beta testing phase of FAFSA, providing a limited group of students with early access to the form. This allowed staff in the Federal Student Aid office to identify bugs and refine the form, thereby expanding usability and ease of design for families ahead of the fall launch.

A second test, hosted in-person in Florida for families and education leaders, marked the earliest successful trial run of the FAFSA form in history. Following this event, the Department of Education has made the form available online at studentaid.gov, allowing families to familiarize themselves with it ahead of time and participate in beta testing.

If this department stays the course, families will see more than just a timely FAFSA. Reforms to federal student loan policy passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will also soon take hold.

As one scholar at the American Enterprise Institute has noted, these changes can help “rein in the growth of tuition, prevent excessive interest accumulation on student debts, and hold colleges accountable for poor student outcomes.”

In other words: Instead of enabling higher education excess, Washington may finally be putting students and taxpayers first.

The post From Fiasco to Fix: FAFSA Finally Puts Families First appeared first on The Daily Signal.