Federal Student Aid (FSA) has released updated guidelines for how the FAFSA should be processed for underaged applicants who wish to apply for financial aid. While these may not be a common occurrence in a given academic year, it is important that such applications are still processed in compliance with federal regulations and completed in a timely fashion.
POSTED DATE: February 05, 2024
AUTHOR: Federal Student Aid
ELECTRONIC ANNOUNCEMENT ID: APP-24-02
SUBJECT: Revised Special Handling Process for FAFSA Filers Under the Age of 13
Federal Student Aid (FSA) has updated the mailing address for sending the completed Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) form for applicants under age 13.
Since there has been no change in the legal requirements for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998 since we first published these special handling procedures on July 18, 2014, you can refer to that electronic announcement for a detailed explanation of the law and how FSA’s process meets those requirements. However, we would like to remind the community that applicants under age 13 should not provide an email address on the application, nor should they use the fafsa.gov website to complete and submit an application.
The FAFSA Form Process for Applicants Under Age 13
When a person under the age of 13 wishes to apply for financial aid, his or her parent or legal guardian, financial aid administrator (FAA), or high school counselor can retrieve the application from the StudentAid.gov website here. Download and print the application, complete and sign it, and mail the completed form to the address provided below.
2023–24 Application:
Federal Student Aid Programs
Attn: COPPA/CORR Process Building 1
1084 South Laurel Road
London, KY 40744
2024–25 Application:
Federal Student Aid Programs
Attn: COPPA Process
25 Air Park Drive
London, KY 40744-8236
After receipt and processing of the paper FAFSA form, results are reported to the institutions (and state) using the regular Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) process. The student will receive a paper Student Aid Report or a FAFSA Submission Summary that, if necessary, can be used to submit corrections.
Once the student’s institution has received the ISIR, it can submit any required corrections using FAA Access to the CPS Online for the 2023–24 award year and the upcoming FAFSA Partner Portal (FPP) for the 2024–25 award year.
NOTE: To ensure COPPA compliance, an email address should not be entered for the underage student as part of the correction process. For the same reason, a student who is under the age of 13 cannot obtain an FSA ID for electronic services from the Department.
Validity of the Student Information Provided on the FAFSA Form
As mentioned previously, we expect that financial aid staff will work closely with these young students and their families to ensure that they understand the information required to be provided on the FAFSA form. However, in those situations where there was little or no contact between the underage student and institutional staff, and the institution has concerns about the information provided by a young student (assuming the underage student is not selected for verification by the Department), we remind institutions of their authority under 34 CFR 668.54(a)(3) to require a student to verify any FAFSA information that the institution specifies. If the institution believes that a student may have not understood the information being requested on the FAFSA form or that the responses to the FAFSA questions are unreasonable, the Financial Aid Administrator can require documentation to assure that taxpayer funded Title IV, HEA funds are being awarded based on correct data.
If there are questions, contact the Application Systems Division at 1-202-377-4600 or ApplicationSystemsDivision@ed.gov.
SOURCE: (APP-24-02) Revised Special Handling Process for FAFSA Filers Under the Age of 13