When Does Fafsa Registre You For Selective Service

Practise yous take to annals for the draft to become fiscal help? Acquire nigh changes regarding Selective Service and FAFSA eligibility.

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has alot of questions. Many are about your personal and financial data, but others may not seem to make much sense.

Case in point: Question 22 on the FAFSA asks you about your registration condition with Selective Service.

Beneath, we'll talk more near the Selective Service System, why we accept it, if (and how) you lot have to sign up, and the potential penalties for non registering—both in general and for your financial aid.

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What is Selective Service?

The Usa regime established the Selective Service Organisation in case information technology felt the need to draft citizens into the military machine for war.

Selective Service

All males between ages 18–25 (except for people meeting certain exemptions that we lay out later) must annals with Selective Service or run a risk legal consequences.

According to the Selective Service Organisation, this ensures fair and equitable drafting if the government, well, institutes a typhoon.

Only the question is, why exercise we have a typhoon system if there hasn't been a draft in decades?

A short history lesson reveals the answer:

Why do we accept Selective Service?

Subsequently years of avoiding it, the US officially joined WWI in 1917 when information technology alleged war on Frg.

Nonetheless, non enough men volunteered for the armed forces to make the United states of america military a strong fighting force in Europe.

And so, Congress passed the Selective Service Act in 1917. This gave the president—Woodrow Wilson at the time—the power to draft soldiers.

After WW1, Selective Service drafting continued in small amounts. It ramped up over again for the Korean War, although it exempted men who served in WWII.

Then, drafting ramped up nevertheless again for the Vietnam War—perhaps the most well-known Usa military conflict when it comes to bug surrounding the draft.

The Selective Service registration requirement paused after the Vietnam War ended in 1972. However, President Jimmy Carter reinstated it in 1980 in response to the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan.

It has remained by and large the same ever since.

The US military has been a 100% volunteer force since 1973—there hasn't been an actual typhoon since the Vietnam War.

Some discussed reviving the typhoon for the Iraq State of war, only nearly public stance was against it.

Today, Selective Service registration isn't enforced too strongly, but there are still severe legal and other consequences for declining to annals.

Regardless of arguments for and against information technology, the system remains in place in case the United states needs to expand armed forces numbers.

Who has to sign up for the typhoon?

In general, most men ages 18–25 in the United states have to sign upwards.

This includes male person citizens and non-citizen male immigrants. Transgender individuals assigned male at nascence but have since inverse their gender to female must also register.

Every bit for the timetable, eligible US citizens have xxx days from their 18th altogether to sign up. Immigrants must sign up within 30 days of inbound the US.

Selective Service registration requirements

Even if you don't similar the draft, you yet have to register. Notwithstanding, yous tin file a claim for exemption if a draft is actually instituted.

Dual nationals must also register for the typhoon, whether or not they live in the US.

All of this assumes these people don't autumn into any of the exempted categories below.

Exempt groups include:

Women
Active duty male Us military members—if out before historic period 26, they must annals within 20 days later on leaving
Armed forces officeholder procurement students at approved institutions—if out before historic period 26, they must register within 20 days after leaving
Cadets and midshipmen in the Coast Guard or canonical service academies
Physically or mentally handicapped individuals who are confined to a dwelling house, hospital, or institution—if released before historic period 26, they must annals inside 20 days following release
Patients hospitalized or institutionalized for medical reasons—if released before historic period 26, they must annals within twenty days
Legal nonimmigrants who hold current nonimmigrant visas
Seasonal agricultural laborers
Incarcerated individuals—if released before age 26, they must register within 20 days following release
Transgender individuals assigned female at birth that have changed their gender to male person

All that said, women may exist required to register in the future.

In 2020, a congressional panel recommended expanding the draft to include women who are 18–25 that don't autumn into other categories listed above (such every bit having a physical or mental handicap).

Lastly, men over age 25 don't have to register. However, if they weren't registered previously, they must provide documentation regarding why they were never registered. For case, if they moved to the US at historic period 26, they'd need to provide paperwork proving that.

How do I register with Selective Service?

For assist years 2021–2022 and 2022–2023, yous tin annals with Selective Service on the FAFSA. However, as we'll become into below, that option will soon disappear.

Aside from the FAFSA, you can register online, by mail, or in person.

To register online, you'll caput to the Select Service System's website and fill up out a short registration class by providing your basic personal information. This includes things similar your name, address, gender, date of birth, and Social Security number.

That website has a printable registration class with the aforementioned general information.

You can too pick up one of these forms at your local post part—if you don't have a Social Security number, this is the method you should use. You can and so make full out the form and drib it off or mail it in.

You should receive an acquittance letter and registration card in the mail service within 90 days of registering with Selective Service. This is your proof of Selective Service registration, so don't lose it!

Practice I have to register with Selective Service to receive financial aid?

For most of Selective Service's history, you lot needed to register to be eligible to receive federal fiscal aid.

If you failed to register past age 26 and yous weren't exempt, the Department of Education disqualified y'all from most forms of federal aid. That includes certain educatee loans, grants, and piece of work-study programs.

Parents, nevertheless, accept never needed to run across this requirement to take out Parent PLUS loans. If they aren't registered, merely you are, your aid eligibility is still safe.

For this reason, Question 22 on FAFSA asks you if you're already registered.

If not, it lets you automatically register for the draft while filling out the FAFSA, although you can withal plow down their offer and register separately online if you lot'd like.

However, this is soon going away.

FAFSA Question 22

In 2020, Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act as part of the larger Consolidated Appropriations Deed, 2021.

This new law ditches the requirement for males to register with Selective Service to qualify for Title IV aid—aka federal aid.

It too gets rid of the restriction on aid for students with drug convictions, which is covered in Question 23 on FAFSA.

The requirement and FAFSA question are being phased out over several years:

2021-2022 accolade year: Questions 22 and 23 remain on the FAFSA, only Selective Service registration is no longer required for assistance eligibility.

2022-2023 award year: This is the same as the 2021–2022 honor year, and information technology adds some language stating farther action from the school and aid applicants isn't necessary.

2023-2024 laurels year: Questions 22 and 23 are removed entirely from the FAFSA, and you're no longer able to annals with Selective Service this way. All language discussing these matters is also removed.

Still, some states may require Selective Service registration for land-based financial aid.

In some states, eligible students must be registered with Selective Service to attend public colleges and universities as well.

Beyond federal aid, though, y'all yet must register with Selective Service if you're not in an exempt group listed earlier. Otherwise, as we're nearly to run into, y'all could face up astringent legal consequences.

Besides financial aid, what happens if I don't register for the draft if I'1000 not exempt?

Failing to sign upwardly for the draft if you lot aren't exempt carries some harsh punishments.

Anyone who fails to annalsor "who knowingly counsels, aids, or abets another to fail to comply with the registration requirement" faces felony charges—with fines of up to $250,000 and a prison term of up to 5 years.

Penalties aren't oftentimes prosecuted nowadays. In April 2019, USA Today stated that only 20 men have ever been criminally charged for failing to register since President Carter's 1980 reinstatement.

Of those 20, 14 were convicted. The last indictment—which happened in 1986—was dismissed before it could make it to trial.

None of this is to say you should avert registering, though. Information technology's the law.

Plus, declining to register can have other consequences, whether or non you're punished through the legal organization.

For i, registration is mandatory to be eligible for federal government jobs and some state government roles. Plus, various state benefits and privileges—such equally commuter's licenses—might require draft registration.

How do I asking a Selective Service waiver?

If you believe you should exist exempt from registration, you'll need to prove that to the authorities by filling out a waiver.

Selective Service waiver

To do so, you'll need to request a Condition Data Letter using the SIL form on this folio of the Selective Service website. You'll have to provide detailed information on why yous're ineligible, forth with copies of supporting documentation (not the originals).

If approved, you'll get your SIL, which indicates why you weren't required to register.

Go on the original version of this somewhere safe. And so, you can brand copies of it whenever an organization—such as a authorities employer—needs to know why you never registered.

Equally for if a draft is really instituted, Selective Service says that men can file claims for exemptions, postponements, or deferments.

They don't provide much data on what that looks like, but they would most likely create (or peradventure already have created) online and printable forms.

You would submit the claim itself without bear witness—Selective Service would and then get back to y'all with further instructions on what info they need, when they demand it, and where to send it to.

If your exemption is denied and you're withal selected for service, you tin can appeal that to a Selective Service Appeal Board.

Selective Service: It's the constabulary, but financial aid rules are easing

Although there hasn't been a draft since the Vietnam State of war, Selective Service registration remains a legal requirement if yous're not in an exempt category.

If you're required to register, information technology's a good idea to do and so, even if yous disagree with the arrangement. They may non enforce the penalties oft, but they still could at any fourth dimension.

Nevertheless, at the very least, failing to register won't risk your college financial aid in the time to come.

For more answers to your financial aid questions, check out our financial aid FAQs.