INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Families with current and future college students should brace for another delay in a critical step toward financial aid. According to our partners at Chalkbeat, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid will not be ready to access on its traditional release date of Oct. 1.

“It’s been a rough roll out overall for this new system, and it has just not worked the way the Federal government -or anyone else- has wanted,” Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales told viewers on WISH-TV’s Daybreak.

The U.S. Department of Education revealed the new timeline last week, saying the roll out will start in October, in a kind of soft launch – testing a limited number of schools and students.

“So that would give them some time to make some fixes on the technical glitches and really get it ready for it, so it’s a seamless experience,” Gonzales explained.

Federal officials promise full access and functionality before the start of December.

The measured approach follows last year’s troubled rollout of the application for the 2024-2025 school year. Families that have filled out the new “Better FAFSA” version agree it offers a faster and easier process, but after it opened late and technical glitches further bogged down the process, frustrations ran high. The timing of the trouble was particularly poor in Indiana, where students were, for the first time, required to fill out the form.

The head of the Education Department addressed the issue in comments that accompanied the new implementation plans. “The Department listened carefully to the input of students, families, and higher education institutions, made substantial changes to leadership and operations at Federal Student Aid, and is taking a new approach this year that will significantly improve the FAFSA experience,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a news release.

Gonzales reports that the new plan fails to fully satisfy some national advocacy groups, but he appears to have found them to be pragmatic about the situation. “(They) say, ‘You know what? We’d rather have a later FAFSA at that point than have a glitchy FAFSA that families can’t fill out and colleges have trouble working with,” he explained.

For the full Chalkbeat story, including the troubling impact last year’s halting rollout may have on students for years to come, click here.