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When you file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®), question 22 allows you to sign up for the Selective Service System (SSS). The FAFSA is a free document that you can fill out to learn more about your eligibility for financial aid, including federal student loans, grants, work-study, institutional scholarships, and more.

The SSS provides the Department of Defense with a list of names in the case of a national emergency that requires a draft. When they turn 18, male U.S. citizens and immigrants must register with the Selective Service System.

Keep reading to learn the answer to, “What is the Selective Service System and FAFSA connection?” and what it might mean for you or your student.

Do You Have to Register for Selective Service to Receive Financial Aid?

As mentioned, you do not have to register for Selective Service in order to receive financial aid. If you failed to register in the past and you weren’t exempt from registering for Selective Service, the Department of Education would not allow you to obtain federal financial aid. This meant you could lose access to student loans, grants, and work-study programs. The rule changed due to the FAFSA Simplification Act of 2020.

Men must register for Selective Service within 30 days of their 18th birthday, though the Selective Service accepts late registrations up until age 26. Note that those who were assigned the male sex at birth must register. Failure to do so is a felony and punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

You may also forfeit the following benefits if you fail to register for the Selective Service:

•   State-based student loans and grant programs in certain states

•   Federal job training under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

•   Federal and possible state and local jobs

•   Delay of U.S. citizenship proceedings for immigrants

Why the Question Is Still on FAFSA

The Selective Service question gives those who must register an easy way to fill out the draft form — you can do it at the same time you file the FAFSA.

How to Answer the Question about Selective Service

It’s helpful to know why people must register for Selective Service. If a crisis requiring a draft were to occur, those required to register would be called through a random lottery number based on year of birth. You’d be examined for mental and physical fitness before being drafted into the Armed Forces.

You can now completely skip over the question about registering for Selective Service on the FAFSA if you choose.

Recommended: FAFSA 101

Is It Better to Register for Selective Service Through FAFSA?

It’s not “better” to register for Selective Service through either the FAFSA or through the Selective Service System website as long as you complete one or the other. However, if you have to fill out both the Selective Service registration and the FAFSA, it may make sense to fill out the FAFSA and take care of both at once.

If you register on the Selective Service website, you’ll provide your:

•   Gender

•   Name

•   Address

•   Social Security number

•   Birthdate

•   Email

•   Phone number

•   How you learned about Selective Service registration

Will Applying for Financial Aid Get Me Drafted?

Applying for financial aid will not automatically “get you drafted” into the military.

What Happens if I Don’t Submit the FAFSA?

If you don’t submit the FAFSA, you could lose out on thousands of dollars of financial aid to help you attend college. Here are some of the different types of financial aid you could lose out on by not filing the FAFSA:

•   Grants: Grants are a type of financial aid that you don’t have to pay back and can come from the federal government, such as qualifying for Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grants, and Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants. You may also lose out on state grants as well.

•   Scholarships: Scholarships also do not have to be repaid and they can come from colleges and universities based on the results of the FAFSA. They can be based on academic merit, talent, or a specific academic area.

•   Work-study: The federal work-study program allows you to earn money by getting a part-time job on campus.

•   Loans: Federal student loans, which must be repaid, allow you to tap into student loans at a lower interest rate. You can borrow up to a certain amount over the course of your academic career. The government pays the accrued interest on subsidized loans while you’re in school part-or half-time while you repay the principal. In the case of unsubsidized loans, you’ll pay the interest that accrues while you’re in school as well as the principal.

You may also be able to access student loan forgiveness for military students and other types of aid.

Upcoming Changes With FAFSA

In addition to the FAFSA Selective Service changes, other 2023–24 FAFSA changes include the removal of drug conviction eligibility questions and the retirement of the myStudent Aid app on June 30, 2022.

You’ll be required to fill out this question when completing the FAFSA, but drug convictions no longer affect your eligibility for federal student aid.

The myStudentAid mobile app launched in October 2018 to allow families to complete the FAFSA in app form. However, due to lack of use and families’ preferences of accessing StudentAid.gov on a mobile device instead of the myStudentAid mobile app, the myStudentAid mobile app was removed from app stores on July 10.

Other changes to the financial aid eligibility formula will affect the 2024-25 academic year, including fewer questions about untaxed income, a change in the term “Expected Family Contribution (EFC)” — it will become the “Student Aid Index (SAI).” The term makes it more clear that the SAI refers to an eligibility index for student aid, not the FAFSA amount — the amount a student will pay for school.

In addition to these changes, the parent who provides the most financial support for a student must complete the FAFSA and the discount for families with more than one child in college also goes away.

Important FAFSA Deadlines

The FAFSA opens on October 1 during each new academic year. There are a few different types of deadlines you need to consider. For the 2022-23 academic year, you must submit the FAFSA on June 30, 2023 by 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time (CST). Corrections or updates must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. CST on Sept. 9, 2023.

However, colleges may have their own deadlines and each state also has its own deadline , which you should check prior to filing the FAFSA. Learn more about the FAFSA with SoFi’s FAFSA guide.

The Takeaway

In the past, Selective Service and FAFSA were intertwined. You’d be asked, “Are you registered with the Selective Service system on the FAFSA?” As a male, you were required to register in order to receive financial aid. In the past, if you failed to register and you weren’t exempt, you would see student loans denied to you, as well as access to grants and work-study programs. However, you no longer have to register for the Selective Service system for FAFSA. The FAFSA and Selective Service rule changed due to the FAFSA Simplification Act of 2020.

After exhausting their federal financial aid options, some borrowers may turn to private student loans to fill in the gap. While these can lack borrower protections afforded to federal student loans, they can be helpful if all other avenues of financing have been depleted.

About the author

Melissa Brock

Melissa Brock is a higher education and personal finance expert with more than a decade of experience writing online content. She spent 12 years in college admission prior to switching to full-time freelance writing and editing. Read full bio.

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An options chain is like a menu of all the available options contracts for a specific security, like a stock or other asset. The options chain, or options matrix, shows the listed puts, calls, strike prices, volume and pricing information, within a certain maturity (or expiration date) for a specific security.

An options chain provides a handy visual way to track important information necessary for options trading, including implied volatility.

Understanding the Options Chain

To understand what an options chain is, it’s essential to first understand how options trading works. With this knowledge, you can build options trading strategies.

Options contracts are derivatives in that they allow investors to speculate on movements of an underlying asset without direct ownership. They provide the right, but not necessarily the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a specified strike price on or before expiration.

But options trading strategies can be quite risky and are typically undertaken by experienced investors.

While options can get quite complex, they generally fall into two kinds of options: calls vs. puts.

Calls are options that grant the right to buy a stock at a preset price (the strike price) on or before the expiration date, while puts grant you the right to sell the underlying asset at a specific price until the expiration.

Call Options

A standard call option contract typically grants an investor the right to buy 100 shares of an underlying stock or other security at the strike price. A call option can be appealing because it provides an investor with a potential way to gain exposure to a stock’s price movements without having to pay the full price for 100 shares.

The investor pays what’s known in options terminology as the “premium” on each share, which is typically much less than the current price of the stock.

Put Options

By contrast, a put option is a contract that allows the investor to sell shares at a certain price at a specified time in the future. The seller of the put option has the obligation to buy the shares from the put buyer, if the put buyer chooses to exercise the option.

If call options are a way to profit from a stock going up in price without having to own the stock itself, then put options are a way to profit from the fall of a stock’s price without having to short the stock (i.e. borrow the shares and then buy them back at a lower price).

Just like trading stocks and other assets, options can be traded using an online investing platform or a traditional brokerage.

In-the-Money and Out-of-the-Money Options

Options can be “in the money” (ITM) or “out of the money” (OTM). The terms refer to the relationship between the options strike price and the market value of the underlying asset.

Understanding the difference between being in-the-money or out-of-the-money helps determine potential profitability and informs decisions about whether to exercise the option.

•   A call option is in the money if the strike price is lower than the current market price of the underlying security. An investor holding such a contract could exercise the option to buy the security at a discount and sell it for a profit immediately.

•   An out-of-the-money call option occurs when the option’s strike price is higher than the current market price of the underlying stock. That means the option doesn’t have any intrinsic value. Any value the option has is based on the possibility that the price of the underlying security will go up in the future.

The reverse applies to puts. A put would be in the money if the strike price is higher than the current market price of the underlying security, and out of the money if the strike price is lower.

What Is an Options Chain?

An options chain is a table displaying different options, along with key data points. The options chain can vary depending on who is providing it, but some of the terms can include:

•   the strike price

•   last price

•   trading volume

•   the bid

•   the ask

•   net change

Once you understand basic options concepts like calls and puts, an options chain will be pretty easy to read.

From there, more complicated options trading strategies, like options trading straddles, can be explored.

Options Chain Example

Here is a hypothetical example of an options chain for Company ABC.

Call options for January 27, 2025

Options chains aren’t standardized, and different providers may display varying levels of detail or additional metrics.

Additional information could include more detail on price fluctuations, such as percentage price changes. Some platforms provide additional data, such as implied volatility, which measures the market’s expectations for future price fluctuations.

Reading the Options Chain

Once you understand the terms listed in the options chain, it’s relatively easy to decode. Reading from left to right in the hypothetical options chain above:

•   Contract name: Just as the fictional ABC company has a stock ticker, options have an alphanumeric identifier. For instance, “ABC250127C00240000” refers to an option to buy ABC shares by January 27, 2025 for $240. In other words, this is a call option with a strike price of $240 that expires on January 27, 2025.

•   Last trade date: The date and time when the option was last traded.

•   Strike: The predetermined price at which the option holder can buy (calls) or sell (puts) the underlying asset before the expiration date.

•   Last price: The most recently traded or posted price of the option.

•   Bid: The highest price someone is willing to pay for the option.

•   Ask: The lowest price someone is willing to sell the option.

•   Change: How the price has changed since the close of the previous trading session.

•   Volume: The number of options contracts traded the most recent day that trading has been open.

•   Open interest: These are the options contracts that haven’t been closed — meaning exercised (i.e. the stock has been bought or sold at the pre-arranged price) or otherwise settled.

How Options Chains Can Help You Trade Options

Options chains are a key tool for trading options. Their role in options trading depends on how brokerages present them and how well they fit into a trader’s overall strategy.

For example, an experienced trader would be able to gauge the market in terms of price movements and higher and lower liquidity. These are key points to know for efficient trade executions and potential profitability.

For example, a trader wanting to assess market conditions for the first call option in the matrix above, may analyze the last price, bid, ask, and net change.

Any brokerage that allows you to trade options will provide the type of information seen in an options chain, as it is necessary for options to be priced and for investors and traders to make informed decisions about options trading.

Brokerages typically also have various deposit and educational or knowledge requirements for options trading as well.

The Takeaway

Options are highly complex derivatives, and investors need to be experienced enough to interpret a series of critical data points in order to build an effective options strategy. One tool that can be helpful for traders is using an options chain, or options matrix.

An options chain is similar to a master list of available options contracts for a specific security (the underlying asset). It shows the puts, calls, expiration dates, strike prices, and volume and pricing information for that asset. By reading these charts, traders can decide which options fit their strategy.

SoFi’s options trading platform offers qualified investors the flexibility to pursue income generation, manage risk, and use advanced trading strategies. Investors may buy put and call options or sell covered calls and cash-secured puts to speculate on the price movements of stocks, all through a simple, intuitive interface.

With SoFi Invest® online options trading, there are no contract fees and no commissions. Plus, SoFi offers educational support — including in-app coaching resources, real-time pricing, and other tools to help you make informed decisions, based on your tolerance for risk.