Can Financial Aid Administrators Assist Students With Entering Information On the FAFSA For 2024-25 and Beyond?

Effective with the 2024-25 award year, a financial aid administrator can no longer enter FAFSA data on the student's or parent's behalf using FAFSA on the Web (FOTW, or online FAFSA), FAA Access to CPS Online (FAA Access), or EDExpress. An aid administrator can counsel a student or parent on how to complete the FAFSA, but the aid administrator cannot enter the FAFSA data or file the FAFSA.

According to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), this change is due to the heightened security under the IRS Code and the need to protect the privacy of federal tax information (FTI) that is transferred into the FAFSA through the FUTURE Act Direct Data Exchange (FA-DDX, formerly the IRS DRT). Each individual completing the FAFSA--the student and each contributor--must log into the FASFA individually and provide his, her, or their own information without having access to the other individual's FTI.

Additionally, regardless of who is helping the student, a student (or parent) is prohibited under Section 483(a)(7) of the Higher Education Act (HEA) as amended, [20 USC 1090] from sharing his or her FSA ID with another individual, even a financial aid administrator. When signing the FAFSA, the student and parent certify that they will not share their FSA IDs with anyone.