· 8 min read · worthmydegree.com
The college money calendar
The admissions calendar is written down everywhere: test dates, essay drafts, early deadlines, decision day. The money has a calendar too, and it is the one that decides what the degree costs. Its dates are set by Congress and the Department of Education, not by any school, so they are the same for every family in the country. They are also spread across the year in an order that makes the most expensive surprise, the aid letter, arrive last, after the list is built and the applications are in.
This guide puts the dates in order and names, for each one, the tool on this site that answers it before it arrives. Every dollar figure below is a legal limit or a published rule and is exact. Every date is the published one.
| When | What happens | What to do first |
|---|---|---|
| October 1 | The FAFSA opens for the next school year | Know your federal number before you file |
| November | Early decision deadlines at the schools that offer it | Price the school before you sign anything binding |
| January | Income-driven payments reset to new poverty guidelines | Only if someone in the house is already repaying |
| March and April | Aid letters arrive | Put each letter into the calculator, then appeal |
| May 1 | The reply date | The money decision is made here, not in March |
| July 1 | Rates, caps and plans change for the year | Know which side of the date your loan falls on |
| September 30, 2026 | Auto pay rate cut enrollment closes | One form with the servicer |
| Six months after leaving school | The first payment | Pick the plan with the numbers, not the default |
October 1: the FAFSA opens
The 2027-28 FAFSA opens on October 1, 2026, and it reads the family's 2025 tax return, two years back. That rule is the reason the form can be filed in the first week: the income it asks about is already settled. In some states, grant money is awarded in the order the forms arrive, so filing early is not a formality.
The form's answer is the Student Aid Index, the number every college starts from when it decides what a family can pay. That number can be known before the form is filed. This site's SAI estimator runs the published federal worksheet line by line from the same inputs the FAFSA asks for, so the figure the Department sends back in the spring is not a surprise. At the few hundred colleges that also collect the CSS Profile, the federal figure is a floor rather than the answer, and the estimator says which direction each Profile question moves it.
November: the binding deadline comes before the aid letter
Early decision deadlines fall in November at most of the schools that offer it, and early decision is a commitment. A family that signs it has agreed to attend before any aid letter exists. The only price a family has at that point is the one it worked out for itself.
That is the month to run the school's own net price calculator and to price the school against the family's residency. The school search prices every college at the rate the family would actually pay, in-state or out-of-state, and lists the school's net price calculator beside it. Nothing binding should be signed in November against a sticker price.
January: the numbers underneath everything reset
Nothing happens in January for a first-time student. For a household with someone already repaying, a parent with older loans or an older sibling, January is when the Department of Health and Human Services reissues the poverty guidelines, and every income-driven payment in the country is figured against them at the borrower's next recertification. The repayment tool carries the current table, and a payment that moved without the balance moving is usually this.
Many colleges and state programs also set their own priority aid deadlines between January and March. These vary by school and are not federal dates, which is exactly why they are easy to miss.
March and April: the aid letter
This is the month families remember. The letter arrives with grants, a federal Direct loan in the student's name, an offer to borrow the rest in the parents' name, and a gap that nobody had named until now.
The two federal loans in the letter have ceilings no aid officer can raise. The student's Direct loan is capped at $5,500 in the first year, $6,500 in the second and $7,500 in each of the last two, which is $27,000 across four years. Parent PLUS is capped at $20,000 a year and $65,000 in total per student. Together they are the most the federal government will lend one family for one bachelor's degree, $92,000, and at three colleges in four that grant a bachelor's, four years costs more than that.
The right move with each letter is to put it into the calculator: the school, the major, and the loan that falls out of the letter after grants and family money. It measures the result against not going at all and says the age at which the degree comes out ahead. Then appeal. Most aid offices take a written appeal before the reply date, and the letter is the opening figure, not the final one. The parents' guide walks through reading a letter this way.
May 1: the reply date
May 1 is the common reply date, and it is where the money decision is actually made. The letters are in, the appeals have been answered, and the family is choosing between priced options rather than between names. The comparison worth making on this day is not between two schools' sticker prices but between two loans over ten years, which is what the calculator's Compare Mode is for.
One rule for this day: the private loan that fills a gap is worse money. It carries a credit check, a co-signer, a market rate, and none of the income-driven repayment or forgiveness that the federal loans in the letter carry. A gap that can only be closed with private money in May is a gap to close by choosing differently, and May 1 is the last day that choice is open.
July 1: the day the rules change
Federal student loan rules turn over on July 1. The interest rate for the coming year applies to loans disbursed from that day. The borrowing caps above have applied to new loans since July 1, 2026, the same day the Repayment Assistance Plan became the income-driven plan for new borrowers and Grad PLUS ended. What RAP charges, and what the plans it replaced charged, is a guide of its own.
July 1 matters twice more. Families whose Parent PLUS loan was first disbursed before July 1, 2026 keep the old borrowing rules for up to three more academic years for that student, so which side of the date a loan fell on decides whether the caps apply at all. And on July 1, 2028, the PAYE and ICR plans close; borrowers still on them have to have chosen another plan by then. The plan-switching guide covers what carries across and what does not.
September 30, 2026: the auto pay rate cut
Enrolling in auto pay has always taken 0.25 percentage points off a federal loan's rate. From July 1, 2026 the Department adds a temporary 0.75 points, a full point in all, on Direct Loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2028. Borrowers already on auto pay get it without doing anything. Everyone else has until September 30, 2026 to enroll with their servicer. It applies on every plan, and it is the only date on this calendar that needs one form and nothing else.
Six months after leaving school: the first payment
The federal Direct loan's grace period is six months. A student who leaves school in May makes a first payment in November or December, and the plan that payment is made under is chosen in that window or assigned by default. The choice is between a fixed plan and RAP for a new borrower, and the repayment tool prices every current plan against one another on the actual balance, income and household, including what forgiveness would cost in tax at the end.
Run the whole year at once
Every date above answers one question: how much will this cost, and is it worth it. The calculator takes the school, the major and the loan, applies every cap and plan on this page automatically, and measures the result against the alternative of not going. Run it in October, before the form, before the binding deadline and before the letter, and March stops being a surprise.