Federal School Codes for FAFSA Financial Aid Applications

A list of unique codes assigned by the Department of Education to schools participating in federal student aid programs. Students use these codes on the FAFSA form to designate which schools should receive their financial aid information. The list is updated quarterly, with the last update in August 2023.

Use Cases

• Validate school eligibility for federal student aid programs using the official Federal School Code list.
• Build a search tool for students to find the correct school code to enter on their FAFSA application.
• Maintain a reference database of Title IV-participating institutions for financial aid office software.

Strengths

• Data is provided directly by the authoritative source, the U.S. Department of Education.
• The list is updated on a regular quarterly schedule (February, May, August, November).
• Released under a permissive CC0 license, allowing for unrestricted use.

Limitations

• The specific data schema, including column names and row count, is not documented in the input.
• Sample data is unavailable, making initial data exploration and validation difficult.
• The dataset is limited to U.S. schools participating in federal aid programs, excluding international institutions.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Education

Collection Method

Assigned and maintained by the Department of Education for Title IV federal student aid programs.

Freshness

Updated quarterly; last updated August 12, 2023.

Geography

United States