[Screenshot from StudentAid.gov, U.S. Department of Education, December 2023: “Your registration status with Selective Service no longer affects your eligibility to receive federal student aid.”]
[Screenshot from StudentAid.gov, U.S. Department of Education, December 2023: “Your registration status with Selective Service no longer affects your eligibility to receive federal student aid.”]
No. You don’t have to register for the draft to get Federal financial aid for higher education.
This used to be the law, but the law was changed in 2020 as part of the “FAFSA Simplification Act”. Selective Service registration is no longer a requirement for Federal student aid including Federal student grants and Federally-guaranteed student loans.
There are no questions about Selective Service on the new FAFSA Federal financial aid application form. The law was changed in 2020, but Congress gave the U.S. Department of Education three years to make all the changes to the FAFSA form required by the FAFSA Simplication Act. Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, all of the questions about Selective Service registration have been removed from the FAFSA form and the data-sharing agreement between the Seelctive Service System and the U.S. Department of Education has been terminated.
The Selective Service System is already seeing a decline in registration now that young men don’t have to register for the draft just to get Federal financial aid for college:
The CY 2022 national registration rate for men aged 18 to 25 was 84 percent. This was a five percent decrease from CY 2021, largely driven by the loss of the requirement for a man to register with SSS to receive Federal student aid and the removal of the option to registration on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, which are both outcomes of the passage of the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020. Since this method of registration historically accounted for up to 20 percent of all annual registrations, SSS expects the national registration rate to further decrease.
[Selective Service System, Annual Report to Congress for Calendar Year 2022]
Officially reported registration rates are lower in states where registration with Selective Service isn’t required to get a drivers license: 75% in California, for example, and 58% in Massachusetts.
No. That was true for many years, but the law was changed by Congress in 2020. Many books, Web sites, college brochures, and other sources of information haven’t been updated. See this official advice from the U.S. Department of Education: “Your registration status with Selective Service no longer affects your eligibility to receive federal student aid.”
The law varies by state. Some states require registration with Selective Service as a condition of eligibility for enrollment in state colleges and universities, in-state resident tuition rates, state student aid, and/or other state programs.
Some states have never had any such laws. Some states that did have such laws repealed or modified them after the Federal law on Selective service and student aid was changed in 2020.
In California, state law was changed in 2021 to align with the change in Federal law. Selective Service registration is no longer required for Cal Grants or other California state student aid:
[Special Alert from the California Student Aid Commission, May 2022: “Selective Service registration… is no longer considered a requirement to receive federal or state financial aid in California.”]
If you are male (as assigned at birth) and of draft age (between your 18th and 26th birthday), you have to register with Selective Service before you can be hired for any Federal government job, or for a state government job in some states.
You never know when you might want to take a job with some government agency. But there’s no need to register with Selective Service until you are applying for a specific government job that requires it, or until you are approaching your 26th birthday.
You can register without penalty any time until your 26th birthday. After you turn 26, it’s too late to register and any disqualification could be permanent — although in many cases nonregistrants are able to get Federal jobs later in life. If you want to be sure of preserving your eligibility for government jobs or other programs that might later require you to have registered, you can register just before your 26th birthday if you haven’t registered before then.
No. Nobody has been prosecuted for refusing to register for the draft since 1986.
Nonregistration is only a crime if the government can prove that you knew you were supposed to register. In practice, that means they have to get you to sign for a certified letter ordering you to register, or send FBI agents to give you a “last chance” to register, before they can prosecute you. They haven’t tried to do that to anyone since 1986, even though the Selective Service System sends the Department of Justice names of 200,000 or more possible nonregistrants every year.
The SSS sends out hundreds of thousands of its own threatening letters every year, but since they aren’t sent by certified mail, the government can’t prove they were delivered or use them in court to prove that you were notified that you were supposed to register. Only 20 nonregistrants were prosecuted in the 1980s before the government gave up trying to enforce the law, and they had all made public statements that could be used against them in court to prove that they knew they were supposed to register and had violated the law “knowingly and willfully”.
Maybe, but only if you need to for a specific prgram or if you are approaching your 26th birthday.
There’s no way to know what government programs might later be linked to Selective Service registration. But once again, there’s no need to register with Selective Service “just in case” you might later want to enroll in one of these programs. You can wait to register if it proves to be necessary, and if you think a specific program or benefit is worth the tradeoff for registering for the draft.
Waiting and registering just before your 26th birthday is the safest course of action for most risk-averse people who don’t want to be drafted but don’t want to risk lifetime disqualification from government jobs or other programs.
Maybe. You could go to collegte in another state that doesn’t require Selective service registration for state student aid, but it might take time to establish residency in a new state for in-state tuition.
A few colleges, including some of those affiliated with traditional peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites, Brethren, etc.) have special funds available for students whon are disqualified from government financial aid because they didn’t register for the draft.
There are a few national student aid funds for nonregistrants, although they have limited resources:
See our advice about Selective Service registration and the other information on this site.
This page published or republished here 24 December 2023; most recently modified 29 February 2024. This site is maintained by Edward Hasbrouck. Corrections, contributions (articles, graphics, photos, videos, links, etc.), and feedback are welcomed.