Do You Have To Register For Selective Service To Apply For College In The United States

Do yous have to register for the draft to get financial aid? Learn about changes regarding Selective Service and FAFSA eligibility.

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

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

Beneath, we'll talk more nigh the Selective Service System, why we take it, if (and how) you lot have to sign upwards, and the potential penalties for not registering—both in full general and for your financial aid.

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What is Selective Service?

The United states government established the Selective Service System in case information technology felt the need to typhoon citizens into the military for war.

Selective Service

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

According to the Selective Service Arrangement, this ensures off-white and equitable drafting if the regime, well, institutes a typhoon.

But the question is, why practise we take a draft system if in that location hasn't been a draft in decades?

A brusk history lesson reveals the respond:

Why practice we have Selective Service?

After years of fugitive it, the U.s.a. officially joined WWI in 1917 when it declared war on Deutschland.

However, not enough men volunteered for the military to brand the US military a potent fighting force in Europe.

So, Congress passed the Selective Service Human action in 1917. This gave the president—Woodrow Wilson at the time—the power to draft soldiers.

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

Then, drafting ramped up yet again for the Vietnam War—mayhap the most well-known US armed forces disharmonize when it comes to issues 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'southward invasion of Afghanistan.

It has remained mostly the same ever since.

The U.s.a. military has been a 100% volunteer strength since 1973—there hasn't been an actual typhoon since the Vietnam State of war.

Some discussed reviving the typhoon for the Iraq War, just nigh public opinion was against it.

Today, Selective Service registration isn't enforced too strongly, simply there are however astringent legal and other consequences for failing to annals.

Regardless of arguments for and against it, the arrangement remains in place in example the Usa needs to expand armed forces numbers.

Who has to sign up for the draft?

In general, nearly men ages xviii–25 in the US have to sign up.

This includes male person citizens and non-denizen male person immigrants. Transgender individuals assigned male person at nativity merely take since changed their gender to female must likewise annals.

As for the timetable, eligible US citizens have xxx days from their 18th birthday to sign up. Immigrants must sign upward inside xxx days of entering the US.

Selective Service registration requirements

Even if you don't similar the draft, you lot nonetheless accept to register. However, you can file a claim for exemption if a draft is actually instituted.

Dual nationals must too annals for the draft, whether or not they live in the U.s.a..

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

Exempt groups include:

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

All that said, women may be required to annals in the future.

In 2020, a congressional panel recommended expanding the draft to include women who are xviii–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. Nevertheless, 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 age 26, they'd need to provide paperwork proving that.

How do I annals with Selective Service?

For assistance years 2021–2022 and 2022–2023, you can register with Selective Service on the FAFSA. However, as nosotros'll go into below, that choice volition before long disappear.

Aside from the FAFSA, y'all can register online, past post, or in person.

To register online, you'll head to the Select Service System's website and make full out a short registration course by providing your basic personal information. This includes things like your proper noun, address, gender, engagement of nascence, and Social Security number.

That website has a printable registration form with the same general data.

You can also pick upwards one of these forms at your local post office—if you don't accept a Social Security number, this is the method you should employ. You can and then fill out the form and driblet it off or mail it in.

You should receive an acknowledgment letter and registration card in the mail inside ninety days of registering with Selective Service. This is your proof of Selective Service registration, so don't lose information technology!

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

For most of Selective Service'southward history, you needed to annals to be eligible to receive federal financial assist.

If you failed to annals by historic period 26 and y'all weren't exempt, the Department of Educational activity disqualified yous from most forms of federal aid. That includes certain pupil loans, grants, and piece of work-written report programs.

Parents, nevertheless, have never needed to meet this requirement to take out Parent PLUS loans. If they aren't registered, simply y'all are, your help eligibility is nonetheless rubber.

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

If not, information technology lets you lot automatically annals for the draft while filling out the FAFSA, although y'all can still decline their offer and annals separately online if you'd similar.

Notwithstanding, this is soon going away.

FAFSA Question 22

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

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

It also 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 existence phased out over several years:

2021-2022 laurels twelvemonth: Questions 22 and 23 remain on the FAFSA, just Selective Service registration is no longer required for assistance eligibility.
2022-2023 award year: This is the same as the 2021–2022 award year, and it adds some language stating further action from the school and aid applicants isn't necessary.
2023-2024 honour year: Questions 22 and 23 are removed entirely from the FAFSA, and y'all're no longer able to register with Selective Service this manner. All language discussing these matters is besides removed.

Still, some states may require Selective Service registration for state-based fiscal aid.

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

Across federal assistance, though, you all the same must register with Selective Service if you lot're non in an exempt group listed earlier. Otherwise, as we're most to see, you could face severe legal consequences.

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

Declining to sign upward for the typhoon if you 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 often prosecuted present. In April 2019, USA Today stated that only twenty men take ever been criminally charged for failing to register since President Carter's 1980 reinstatement.

Of those twenty, 14 were bedevilled. The final indictment—which happened in 1986—was dismissed earlier it could make it to trial.

None of this is to say y'all should avert registering, though. It's the police.

Plus, failing to register can have other consequences, whether or not yous're punished through the legal organisation.

For 1, registration is mandatory to be eligible for federal regime jobs and some state government roles. Plus, various state benefits and privileges—such equally driver's licenses—might crave typhoon registration.

How do I request a Selective Service waiver?

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

Selective Service waiver

To practise then, you'll need to request a Status Data Letter using the SIL form on this page of the Selective Service website. You lot'll have to provide detailed information on why you're ineligible, along with copies of supporting documentation (non the originals).

If approved, y'all'll go your SIL, which indicates why you weren't required to annals.

Keep the original version of this somewhere safe. Then, you tin can make copies of it whenever an system—such as a government employer—needs to know why y'all never registered.

Every bit for if a typhoon is actually instituted, Selective Service says that men tin file claims for exemptions, postponements, or deferments.

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

You would submit the merits itself without bear witness—Selective Service would then get back to you with further instructions on what info they need, when they need it, and where to ship information technology to.

If your exemption is denied and you're however selected for service, you can entreatment that to a Selective Service Entreatment Board.

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Selective Service: Information technology's the law, but financial help rules are easing

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

If you're required to annals, it's a good idea to practise so, even if you disagree with the arrangement. They may not enforce the penalties ofttimes, only they all the same could at whatever fourth dimension.

However, at the very least, failing to register won't hazard your higher financial aid in the future.

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