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2024-2025 FAFSA Changes

Last updated May 6, 2024

The 2024–25 FAFSA® Form is available. If you haven't yet submitted yours, you may do so at any time. If you need to make corrections or submit a signature, that functionality is available now as well.

At NMC, the 2024-25 FAFSA is used to determine financial aid eligibility for fall 2024 through summer 2025.

PROCESSING UPDATE: Schools are now receiving FAFSA results approximately 1-3 business days after the FAFSA or correction was submitted. While we have received the majority of records that required reprocessing to correct errors in the initial calculations, there are still a few dozen with unresolved issues. 

The Financial Aid Office will begin processing aid offers for incoming students the week of May 6. This process will be a bit slow as we have a large backlog to work through. Your continued patience is appreciated.  

If you experience issues while completing your FAFSA, the FAFSA Issue Alerts page identifies known issues, workarounds, and resolutions.   

The FAFSA is shorter and more user-friendly.

A significant reduction in the number of questions with skip logic allows for a more streamlined format.

The FAFSA is available in more languages.

The 2024-25 FAFSA is available in the 11 most common languages spoken by English learner students and their parents.

All “contributors” will need to participate.

A contributor is a new term and refers to anyone required to provide information on the form (such as parents/stepparent or a student’s spouse). Each contributor must have their own studentaid.gov account.

Being a contributor does not mean they are financially responsible for the student’s education costs, but it does mean the contributor must provide information on the FAFSA or the application will be incomplete, and the student will not be eligible for federal student aid.

An incomplete FAFSA will be deleted after 45 days of inactivity. Make sure any contributors take action before the 45 days is up. 

Most applicants are required to use the IRS Direct Data Exchange.

Students and their contributors must provide consent for the Department of Education to receive income tax information or confirmation on non-filing status directly from the IRS.

The Student Aid Index (SAI) replaces the Expected Family Contribution (EFC).

Students and families will see a different measure of their ability to pay for college, and they will experience a change in the methodology used to determine aid. The new need analysis formula removes the number of family members in college from the calculation, allows a minimum SAI of -1500, and implements separate eligibility determination criteria for Federal Pell Grants.

Students must report the income of the parent who provides the most support.

Instead of reporting the income of the parent they live with for most of the year, dependent students of divorced or separated parents now need to report the income of the parent who provides the most financial support.

Net worth of family farms and small businesses must be reported as assets.

Previously, the net worth of a family farm or small business with fewer than 100 employees was not required. Beginning with 2024-2025, the net worth of each will be part of the FAFSA calculation. 

Pell Grants will be prorated based on credit hours instead of enrollment level.

Previously, Pell Grants were prorated based on enrollment level. Beginning with the 24-25 aid year, Pell will be prorated based on the number of credits you are taking each semester. 

Number in college is not used to calculate SAI.

Previously, the FAFSA calculated the number of household members attending college into the EFC. Moving forward, the FAFSA will still ask how many family members attend college, but your answer will not be included in the SAI calculation. 

Family size comes from the IRS.

Family size is based on federal tax information (FTI) transferred directly from the IRS to the FAFSA via the FUTURE Act Direct Data Exchange (FA-DDX). This means the number of dependents in the family size is now based on the number of individuals who are claimed as dependents on either the applicant’s (if independent) or parent’s (if dependent) U.S. federal tax return. 

If FTI is pulled in, the FAFSA contributor (student and/or parent) is then given the opportunity to manually update the family size if it has changed since filing the applicable tax return.

What is not changing?

  • The FAFSA will still be required every year.
  • The FAFSA will still request income tax information from the prior-prior year, which means you will report 2022 income for the 2024-2025 FAFSA. If your financial situation has changed, please reach out to your financial aid counselor.
  • The general types of aid available and federal student loan limits will not change.

Disclaimer

NMC’s Financial Aid Office is dedicated to providing timely updates to students, families, and our community. Due to the significant number of changes that are occurring, portions of our website may not yet be 100% accurate for the 2024-2025 aid year. We will continue to update this page as we receive more information from the Department of Education and Federal Student Aid.

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Financial Aid Office
Email: NMC.finaid@methodistcollege.edu
Office hours: Mon-Fri, 8-4:30 p.m.
FAFSA code: 009937

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