Yes, our Financial Success team will be hosting several workshops for new and continuing students.

The FAFSA will open for 2026-2027 on October 1, 2025.

The 2026-2027 Texas priority deadline to submit your FAFSA is January 15, 2026.

We will start receiving FAFSAs in November. You can always log back into studentaid.gov to check the status of your FAFSA, view your Student Aid Index (SAI), or see if information is missing.

Please note, you must include UT San Antonio’s school code (010115) and have successfully submitted your application for ED to send the files to UT San Antonio.

No. Students do NOT need a FAFSA on file to submit it, but it is highly encouraged. Students will only need a myUTSA ID to log into the UTSA Scholarship Hub, which they receive within 72 hours after they submit an admissions application to UTSA. It is strongly encouraged that all students file a FAFSA regardless.

A contributor is anyone who is required to provide consent for Federal Tax Information (FTI) and a signature on the FAFSA including:

• The student
• The student’s spouse (if applicable)
• A biological or adoptive parent; or
• The spouse of a remarried parent who is on the FAFSA (i.e., a stepparent)

The new FAFSA is student-driven, meaning the student’s answers on their section will determine who will be a contributor (in addition to the student). Students will need the contributor’s name, date of birth, Social Security Number (SSN), and email address to invite them to complete their required portion of the FAFSA. Contributors will need to provide personal and financial information on their section of the FAFSA.

If a dependent student’s parents are unmarried and living together, both parents will be contributors, will need to have separate Federal Student Aid (FSA) IDs, and need to provide consent. Dependent students whose parents filed their U.S. income tax return as Married Filing Jointly only require one parent contributor to complete the FAFSA. If the student’s parents filed separately, both parents will be considered contributors and therefore need separate FSA IDs.

If an independent student is married and filed separately, both individuals are contributors and must have FSA IDs.

To create an FSA ID, please visit the Create Account webpage on the Federal Student Aid website.

For the FAFSA to process successfully, consent must be provided by all required contributors (student, parent, parent spouse, and/or student spouse) on the FAFSA. This allows the Federal Tax Information (FTI) transferred from the IRS to be provided to higher education institutions, state higher-education agencies, and designated scholarship organizations.

Consent is provided once for the academic year and cannot be revoked in that academic year. This consent is necessary even if the contributor does not have a Social Security Number (SSN), did not file taxes, or filed taxes in another country. To provide consent, contributors must have an FSA ID. The process of creating an FSA ID for those without a SSN will become available starting in December, using the Department of Education’s newly developed system to validate identity with credit bureau data.

Determining what parent(s) to include on the FAFSA is changing. Income and assets are to be reported for the parent who provides the most financial support even if the student does not live with that parent or lives with the other parent.

In previous years, if a student’s parents were divorced or separated, the parent with whom the student lived the most in the past 12 months prior to filing the FAFSA was to be listed; however, this is no longer the primary consideration.

Parental Income on the FAFSA

• Parents who live together
  • Parental income and assets in the case of a student whose parents are married and not separated, or who are unmarried but live together, shall include the income and assets of both parents.
• Divorced or separated parents
  • Parental income and assets for a student whose parents are divorced or separated, but not remarried, is determined by including only the income and assets of the parent who provides the greater portion of the student’s financial support.
• Death of a parent
  • Parental income and assets in the case of the death of any parent is determined as follows:
    • If either of the parents has died, the surviving parent shall be considered a single parent, unless that parent has remarried.
    • If both parents have died, the student shall not report any parental income or assets.
• Remarried parents
  • If a parent who is divorced or widowed and would be included on the FAFSA has remarried, the income of the parent’s spouse must be included if the student’s parent and the stepparent are married as of the date the FAFSA is completed.
• Single parent
  • For a single parent who is not divorced, separated, or remarried, the income and assets of the single parent shall be included.

The FAFSA Simplification Act expanded the Pell Grant to more students and linked eligibility to family size and the federal poverty guidelines that were in effect during the tax year being requested on the FAFSA.  Additionally, for students who qualify, the amount of Pell Grant will be based on enrollment intensity, which means they will look at how many credit hours you’re registered in to determine how much will pay out.

The IRS Direct Data Exchange (DDX) is built into the FAFSA for importing student, parent, parent spouse, and/or student spouse Federal Tax Information (FTI).

All persons on the FAFSA must provide consent for the Department of Education to receive tax information or confirmation of non-filing status directly from the IRS. In a very small number of cases, students and families will have to enter their tax data manually, but for most, that data will be automatically transferred into the application. This change makes it easier to complete the FAFSA and reduces the number of questions to be answered.