FSA has released an electronic announcement describing updates to several FSA systems and the FAFSA processing experience resulting from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The system changes are expected to go live on April 26, 2026.
Eligible Workforce Programs
- FSA is updating the FAFSA Processing System (FPS) to account for the OBBBA change that extends Pell Grant eligibility to a student enrolled in an eligible workforce program even if the student has already obtained a bachelor’s degree. Before OBBBA, students with a bachelor’s degree could only receive a Pell Grant to enroll in certain teacher certification programs.
- A new field, “Enrolled in Eligible Workforce Program,” will be added to the FAFSA Partner Portal (FPP), Electronic Data Exchange (EDE) batch corrections system. This field will also be added to the end of the “Matches and Other Processing Information” block in the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR). The options for this field are:
- 1 = Yes
- 2 = No
- = Null
- When a student submits a FAFSA form for the first time, the value of this field will be set to ‘blank’ for the initial transaction. Pell Grant eligibility will be calculated on this initial transaction consistent with existing practice. If the student has indicated that they have already received a bachelor’s or graduate degree or are currently enrolled in a program leading to a graduate degree, the Pell eligibility flag will be set to ‘No’.
- A financial aid administrator (FAA) must manually set this field to ‘Yes’ via EDE batch correction to indicate that this student is enrolled, or accepted for enrollment, in an eligible workforce program that has been approved by the Department.
- Once the indicator is set to ‘Yes’, FPS will process a new ISIR transaction that includes updated Pell Grant eligibility. A student who meets all requirements to qualify for a Pell Grant except that they have obtained a bachelor’s degree will then become eligible for a Pell Grant. Schools must still confirm that students enrolled in eligible workforce programs meet all eligibility criteria, including not having a graduate credential or currently being enrolled in a graduate program.
- All schools listed on the FAFSA form and state agencies will receive this new transaction, even if they did not update the “Enrolled in Eligible Workforce Program” indicator. FSA will update the FAFSA Submission Summary to make this clear to students. Partners should note that this new transaction may include additional corrections unrelated to Workforce Programs.
- To help prevent schools from incorrectly disbursing a Pell Grant to a student who qualifies for Pell Grant funds due to enrollment in an eligible workforce program at another institution, the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) system will generate a new warning edit. This warning will prompt schools to confirm that the disbursement is for an eligible workforce program whenever they attempt to disburse funds on a transaction with the “Enrolled in Eligible Workforce Program” indicator selected and for which tuition and fees were not reported.
- If the student ceases to be enrolled in the program, the institution must make a correction to set the field to ‘No’. If the school initially set the indicator to ‘Yes’ because the student was accepted into an eligible workforce program, but the student never enrolls in the program, the institution should change the field to blank. If a student is never accepted into and never enrolls in an eligible workforce program at an institution, the institution may leave the field blank.
Modified Loan Limits
- FSA is updating the National Student Loan Database System (NSLDS®) match process to account for a new lifetime maximum loan limit, limits on Direct PLUS loans for parent borrowers, and the elimination of eligibility for Direct PLUS loans for graduate and professional students.
- The NSLDS Information block on the ISIR has been updated to accommodate new aggregate loan limits, academic levels, and loan limit exception flags. This includes several new fields, as well as 12 additional NSLDS post-screening reason codes.
- FPS has extended existing logic for FPS-C flags, edits, and comments to align with these changes. For example, FPS-C flags will be set for new indicators such as the NSLDS Professional Combined Limit Indicator when the value of the indicator is set to E (Exceeded). See the 2026–27 FAFSA Specifications Guide for full details.
Launch Details
- All changes to the FPS, NSLDS, and COD systems described above will be released on April 26, 2026. As previously communicated, eligibility changes and modified loan limits will go into effect on July 1, 2026.
- This release will include a mid-cycle update to only the 2026–27 ISIR format. The 2025–26 ISIR format will not change. Any 2026–27 ISIR generated on or after April 26 will be generated in the new format.
- A draft version of the updated 2026–27 ISIR layout and Volume 4A of the 2026–27 FAFSA Specifications Guide are now available. Updates to Volume 1, Volume 4B, Volume 5, Volume 6, and Volume 7 of the guide will be published over the next month. FSA will post an update when they are available.
- There won’t be a large-scale reprocessing effort as part of this launch. Changes to student records in NSLDS may trigger a post-screening NSLDS system generated transaction using the existing process.
For more information see the official announcement: (APP-26-02) One Big Beautiful Bill Act FAFSA Processing Updates