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The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed the FAFSA Deadline Act, which would enshrine Oct. 1 as the mandated deadline for the federal student aid form’s launch each year. Currently the education department is required to release it by Jan. 1.
While most years the FAFSA has launched around Oct. 1, the past two years it’s been delayed. This year it will launch sometime this month, following a two-month testing period; last year the form launched at the end of December, after a congressionally mandated overhaul pushed back the Education Department’s timeline. That delay contributed to a major setback in students receiving financial aid offers and jeopardized college access for low-income students.
North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx, chairwoman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, called the bill “a necessary measure” to protect the future of such students “by enforcing deadlines, ensuring transparency, and making certain that families receive the aid they depend on to make college accessible.”
“This is about delivering the basic functionality students deserve and safeguarding their ambitions against bureaucratic failure,” she wrote in a press release.
The bill advanced from the House Education and the Workforce Committee in July after debate over whether a congressionally mandated FAFSA deadline could force the Education Department to release the form before it’s ready, as many say they did last cycle. Some committee Democrats opposed the act, including Representative Bobby Scott, the committee’s ranking member.
But the FAFSA Deadline Act enjoyed broad bipartisan support on the House floor Friday—including an endorsement from Scott—and passed by a unanimous vote of 382 to zero. Originally, California Democrat Zoe Lofgren voted against the bill but later switched her vote, saying she accidentally pressed the wrong button.
