Key Points
- More than 10 million 2026–27 FAFSA forms have been completed, a 17% increase over the same point last year.
- New FAFSA earnings indicator encouraged roughly 25% of students shown a low-earnings flag to switch their school selection.
- The 2027–28 FAFSA form is on track for an October 1 launch, with a new pre-populated renewal feature for returning students.
The U.S. Department of Education announced that more than 10 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms for the 2026-27 academic year have been completed and processed this application cycle.
That represents a 17% increase over the number of applications completed at this point during the previous year and a 487% jump compared to two years ago, when the Biden Administration’s botched rollout of a redesigned FAFSA form left millions of families waiting months for processing.
The Department credited the improvement to what it called "the earliest FAFSA launch in history".
“The Trump Administration continues to deliver historic and timely updates to the form — ensuring that students and families can make informed decisions while applying for financial aid,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement.
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this article to you, so you can come back to it later!
Updated College Scorecard And Earnings Data
Alongside the FAFSA numbers, the Department announced updates to the College Scorecard — a digital comparison tool that lets students and families evaluate schools based on outcomes like graduation rates, cost, and earnings.
The latest refresh includes new data on what students earn four years after graduation, covering the 2017-18 and 2018-19 completion cohorts.
The Department also improved the Scorecard’s search function, allowing users to compare student outcomes by field of study rather than just by institution. That means a student weighing an engineering degree at one school versus a business degree at another can now see earnings data broken out by program.
The FAFSA’s earnings indicator (a flag that warns students when a school’s graduates earn below a certain threshold) also received a data refresh.
Since the indicator launched in December 2025, roughly 25% of students who saw the low-earnings flag removed that school from their FAFSA and selected a different institution. The Department stressed that the flag is meant to inform, not restrict, student choices.
Here's what the flag looks like:
FAFSA Improvements: Easier Forms, Less Fraud
The Department highlighted several changes to the FAFSA process itself. A redesigned contributor invite system now lets students share a personalized code with a parent or other contributor, simplifying the process of completing multi-party applications.
On fraud prevention, the Department said it reversed what it characterized as years of neglect, identifying and eliminating fraudulent FAFSA submissions that it claims saved federal taxpayers more than $1 billion last year.
Looking ahead, the upcoming 2027-28 FAFSA form will pre-populate returning students’ data from prior submissions, cutting down the time needed to renew financial aid applications each year.
What This Means For Students And Families
For households in the middle of college planning, the practical takeaway is that the FAFSA process is running closer to its intended timeline.
The earnings data updates matter too. Families are increasingly asked to weigh the return on investment of a college degree, and having program-level earnings information available during the application process gives students a concrete data point before they commit to thousands of dollars in debt.
The 25% figure on students who changed their school selection after seeing the low-earnings flag is notable. It suggests the transparency tool is influencing real decisions, though it remains to be seen whether those students are choosing higher-earning programs or simply avoiding the flag.
The Department confirmed the 2027-28 FAFSA is on track for an October 1 release, which would mark the second consecutive on-time launch after years of delays.
Don't Miss These Other Stories:
Editor: Colin Graves
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.