Can a School Collect FAFSA Signature Pages Starting With the 2024-25 Award Year?

No. The school will no longer be able to collect a traditional FAFSA signature page on behalf of the student, spouse, or parent contributor starting with the 2024-25 award year--not even for confined or incarcerated students. Basically, for 2024-25 and subsequent award years, when a signature is required to be entered on a FAFSA, that signature will need to be sent to and processed directly by the the U.S. Department of Education (ED). There will be no collection of signatures through FAFSA Partner Portal (formerly FAA Access to CPS Online). This was explained in the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) June 13, 2023 ISIR vs. ISIR webinar and further clarified with NASFAA.

There is a difference in processing depending on whether the FAFSA was completed online or by paper.

Online FAFSA: Effective with the 2024-25 FAFSA, all FAFSA contributors (student, spouse, parent, as applicable) on an online FAFSA must have an FSA ID (username and password) and must provide consent for ED to obtain federal tax information (FTI) from the IRS in order for the student to receive Title IV aid. See AskRegs Knowledgebase Q&A, Who Is a FAFSA Contributor Starting With the 2024-25 FAFSA?

If the contributor has a Social Security Number (SSN), that SSN will be used to create the FSA ID. Unlike in the past, a contributor without an SSN will be able to create an FSA ID without an SSN, and there will be a match to validate/authenticate someone without an SSN. As long as the contributor passes this validation/authentication, they can electronically sign the FAFSA. As a result, FAFSA signature pages cannot be used to sign the online FAFSA.

If the contributor denies consent and submits the FAFSA without a signature, they can correct this by adding consent at a later date. It doesn’t matter what that contributor's role is; they can go online and submit a correction, or they can submit the correction using the FAFSA Submission Summary and mailing it to the FAFSA Processing System (FPS, formerly the Central Processing System). Making this correction to provide consent and to add a signature to the FAFSA must be done by the contributor, not the financial aid administrator (FAA), meaning the FAA cannot enter the signature for the contributor using the FAFSA Partner Portal.

Paper FAFSA: Students completing the paper FAFSA (which will likely include the majority of incarcerated students), will not need an FSA ID. If those students and their contributors ever want to take any action online (i.e., corrections, a future FAFSA, or accessing their information via StudentAid.gov), they will need an FSA ID to provide consent and electronically sign the FAFSA. If the student or contributor filed a paper FAFSA without a signature, the student or contributor will need to either:

• Go online using an FSA ID, grant consent, and electronically sign the FAFSA; or
• Print the FAFSA Submission Summary, sign it, and mail it to the FPS.

Here again, making a correction to provide consent or to provide a signature on the FAFSA must be done by the contributor, not the FAA, meaning the FAA cannot enter the signature using the FAFSA Partner Portal.

FSA Webinar Note: The above guidance is more recent than that provided in Q&A 19 in ED's June 13, 2023 webinar, ISIR vs. ISIR: 2023-24 vs. 2024-25.

Corrections: FAFSA corrections (beyond providing a signature on the FAFSA) can still be submitted using the FAFSA Partner Portal. Most corrections require the student's and/or contributor's signature on the FAFSA, and the FAA can still make those corrections on on the student's or contributor's behalf with a properly signed FAFSA Submission Summary.