The Department of Education developed a series of webinars and short videos to help students and parents prepare for the December release of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The FAFSA bootcamp webinars include details on the importance of the FAFSA, how it’s used, and how to fill it out, what information is needed to complete the application, how to use the College Scorecard to help select a college or university, and the key differences from the previous FAFSA. These webinars, and other resources, will be available on the Office of Federal Student Aid’s (FSA) YouTube channel.

In addition to the webinars, FSA created a series of short videos for current and prospective students to help them through the FAFSA process. The two videos with the broadest information are What is FAFSA? and What’s changed for the 2024-25 FAFSA form?  

The video highlighting the changes in the new FAFSA cites six new aspects that students need to be prepared for when filling out the FAFSA:

1. In addition to student information, a student’s spouse or a student’s stepparent may also need to participate as a contributor and provide information for the form.
2. Consent and approval for the transfer of federal tax information from the IRS is required to be eligible for federal student aid.
3. Federal tax information will be automatically transferred from the IRS.
4. The student and all contributors must have their own individual studentaid.gov accounts.
5. More details about the status of the student’s application will be available on the student’s FAFSA dashboard than previously.

The student can send their FAFSA to up to 20 colleges.