The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is changing!
UTK students need to complete their FAFSA every year by the priority deadline February 15, 2024 to apply for or remain eligible for most types of aid, including state and federal grants, need-based scholarships, Federal Work-Study, the HOPE scholarship, loans, and more!
The New, Better FAFSA will be:
- Shorter
- Less questions for students and parents/guardians to answer
- Easier to file
- Automatic income tax data import will improve filing accuracy and mean less manual work and errors for students and parents/guardians
- Opening later
- This year’s FAFSA (for the 2024-2025 academic year) is opening in December of 2023. The FAFSA will resume it’s normal opening date of October 1 in 2024.
What Should You Do Now?
- Make sure you and your parent/guardian have your FSA IDs ready BEFORE you plan to file! If you have filed a FAFSA before, you have an FSA ID. If it is your first time filing a FAFSA, you will need to create an account and get your FSA ID.
- An FSA ID is required to file a FAFSA, and both students and parents need one. If parents file their taxes separately, they both need an FSA ID. If they file taxes jointly, they only need one FSA ID.
- Important: You will not be able to apply for an FSA ID and file your FAFSA in the same day, as the FSA ID processing and retrieval can take up to 3 days.
- If you don’t have an FSA ID, or can’t remember it, please visit the Federal Student Aid Website.
- For this year, make plans to file as soon as the FAFSA opens, as the window for filing will be shorter. (The 2024-25 FAFSA is opening in December 2023.)
- The UT FAFSA Priority Deadline is February 15, 2024.
Filing the FAFSA
- Have your FSA ID ready.
- Visit the Federal Student Aid FAFSA website to start filing your FAFSA.
- Use UT’s federal school code – 003530, when you file.
- File by the UT FAFSA Priority Deadline of February 15, 2024.
The UT FAFSA Priority Filing Deadline of February 15, 2024, is the date that you need to have your FAFSA filed by to be eligible for the majority of the different types of aid. Don’t forget! File as soon as you can once the FAFSA opens.
Starting with the 2024-2025 FAFSA, more students will be eligible for Pell grants than ever before! Pell is calculated based on your Student Aid Index (SAI). Your SAI measures your parents income, your family size, how much you may be able to pay, and how much you need. Make sure you file your FAFSA to find out if you are Pell eligible!
The new FAFSA makes filing easier than ever! FAFSA filing errors were common, due to the amount of information the FAFSA gathered, including tax info. Errors meant that students had to fix information and could not be provided with the correct estimated financial aid amount. The new FAFSA automatically pulls in income tax information, making user errors less likely, and helping ensure the information is correct. This step requires consent from both the student and parent. Consent is just giving permission for your IRS data to automatically link to your form.
If your parents are separated or divorced, the parent that provides the most financial support to you will file. If your parents file their income tax together, it doesn’t matter which parent files.
Don’t Forget!
UT students need to complete their FAFSA every year to apply for or remain eligible for most types of aid, including grants, need-based scholarships, Federal Work-Study, the HOPE scholarship, loans, and more!