Test ISIRs for the 2024-25 FAFSA are now available to financial aid offices and software vendors along with open-source tools to help users integrate this new data into their operating systems. While this is a step in the right direction, institutions will not officially receive ISIR files until “the first half of March” as the Department of Education announced to the public on January 30, 2024.
Read the full announcement below.
POSTED DATE: February 16, 2024
AUTHOR: Federal Student Aid
ELECTRONIC ANNOUNCEMENT ID: GENERAL-24-12
SUBJECT: Additional 2024–25 Test ISIR Data File and Other Tools Available
As announced last week, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) has been preparing additional test versions of the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) for publishing no later than Feb. 16, 2024. We are pleased to announce we have begun publishing these additional test ISIRs. The new test ISIR data file contains fictitious student records with realistic field values for different scenarios. Testing is optional.
- These test ISIRs contain test data and should be considered as drafts. We will update the test ISIRs if issues are identified.
- These test ISIRs reflect the current ISIR format.
- Additional test ISIRs will be added as they become available.
- Schools and software vendors will be able to upload test ISIRs by submitting a “pull request,” a common method of delivering code and content for review in the software engineering community. Submitted test ISIRs will go through light validation and review before being publicly posted. These ISIRs will be considered draft data and should not be expected to receive ongoing support.
The scenarios included in the new test ISIR data file added on Feb. 16, 2024, are as follows:
- Independent applicant with dependents, Pell eligible, FTI tax information
- Provisionally independent applicant, processed with rejects, FTI tax information
- Independent applicant without dependents, Pell eligible, manual tax information
- Dependent applicant, two parents/contributors, all FTI non-filer tax information, max Pell
- Dependent applicant, one parent/contributor, all FTI tax information, Pell eligible
- Dependent applicant, two parents/contributors, student/one parent FTI tax information, other parent manual tax information, Pell ineligible due to SAI
- Dependent applicant, two parents filed jointly so one contributor, all FTI tax information, Pell ineligible
- Dependent applicant, one parent/contributor, applicant FTI non-tax filer, parent FTI tax information, Pell eligible
In addition, we are pleased to announce we have begun publishing open-source tools to help colleges, third-party servicers, and software vendors with their testing and preparations for the 2024-25 ISIRs:
- These tools include an ISIR viewer, which can intake a file of ISIRs with .dat or .txt extension, conduct light field-level validation, export the data as an Excel spreadsheet, and display both the ISIR data and validation results in a simple browser-based user interface.
- An additional tool can ingest an Excel spreadsheet and provide ISIRs in multiple formats.
- The code used for field validation is shared between multiple tools and is also available in a separate file.
- These tools will have limited ongoing support.
- Additional tools and updates to existing tools will be published as they become available.
To Access Additional Test ISIR Data Files and Open-Source Tools
The test ISIRs and open-source tools are stored in a public Department of Education GitHub repository. Those interested in these materials can access this repository to view and download files. We strongly encourage use of GitHub as any updates to test files and the tools are likely to first appear there.
Those interested in these materials can access this repository to view and download files. While we are sharing these files here, we strongly encourage use of GitHub as any updates to test files and the tools are likely to first appear there.
As noted, these new test ISIRs are also available as an attachment to the 2024–25 FAFSA Specifications Guide on the Knowledge Center website. Locate the file under “Attachments” for Volume 9 – Testing and Web Demo System.
Contact Information
We welcome our partners to continue to submit questions related to the 2024-25 FAFSA launch, including questions or comments about the FSA-developed additional test ISIRs and open-source tools, using the Contact Customer Support form in FSA’s Partner Connect Help Center. To submit a question, please enter your name, email address, topic, and question. When submitting a question related to this Electronic Announcement, please select the topic “2024-25 FAFSA.”
SOURCE: (GENERAL-24-12) Additional 2024–25 Test ISIR Data File and Other Tools Available