Last year, driven by a sense of self-inflicted punishment, I attempted to become the first person in the United States to submit a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form exactly when the Department of Education launched its long-overdue update.

My mission on New Year’s Eve was a failure, as the website was down. This setback turned out to be a foreshadowing of what many others would experience. The launch of the new FAFSA was a colossal digital disaster, ranking alongside the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare website and the Equifax data breach.

For months, vulnerable students—such as those with undocumented parents, or those who lacked a Social Security number, or whose parents made data entry errors they couldn’t correct—found themselves stuck, unable to determine if they were eligible for the grants and loans necessary to make college affordable. At one FAFSA completion event, only 20% of students managed to finish their forms.

This week, the Department of Education took another shot, reopening the FAFSA site after additional revisions and multiple rounds of testing.

It seems to be working fine now. I completed my part in under 20 minutes. The process of importing tax data from the IRS was so fast I wondered if I had made a mistake. My daughter finished her part in just 10 minutes and received our results—the Student Aid Index—almost immediately.

We are the lucky ones, however, as our citizenship, permanent address, and up-to-date tax filings pose no complications.

This year, the Department did what it should have done in the first place: it tested the form with community organizations that support students with more complex family situations. These efforts have largely been successful.

Christine Miller, the director of college advising at the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria in Virginia, recalled how she vented her frustrations during last year’s rollout. This time, however, over 95% of the students her organization serves have successfully completed their FAFSA forms without any problems. This includes students from families with parents who don’t have a Social Security number.

The Department’s efforts to improve the process have also been evident. Staff have attended testing sessions and quickly fixed issues as they arose. So far, over 167,000 people have completed their forms in this cycle.

If you’re ready to join them, here are a few tips. First-time applicants will need to create an FSA ID before starting the FAFSA. The nonprofit uAspire has a comprehensive guide for this process, and the Department of Education provides a tool to help you determine which parents or guardians should also obtain an FSA ID.

Before you begin, make sure you have the necessary tax documents. I mistakenly thought the system would pre-populate all required fields, but there was a question about foreign earned income that my tax forms helped me address.

You should also have anyone else involved—whether it’s your child, spouse, or parent—available for questions. You can save your progress and return later, but it’s usually better to complete the form in one sitting.

Remember, we are just the first link in the financial aid process. Once the FAFSA is submitted, the Department of Education must seamlessly transmit the data to colleges, and schools need to be able to make bulk corrections, which was another area that broke down last year.

Financial aid officers are often viewed as gatekeepers, there to tell families that there are no more funds available. More often than not, however, these administrators are the unsung heroes who navigate a convoluted federal aid system they can’t control.

“We had a meeting to ask one another how we were coping,” said Stephen Schultheis, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Middle Georgia State University, reflecting on the chaos of the previous aid season.

With the incoming administration under President Trump, it’s unclear what changes, if any, might come. For Linda McMahon, the likely nominee for Secretary of Education, the best move might be to say nothing about the FAFSA—then, if everything goes smoothly, she could claim credit next year for the work she had no hand in.

For those truly doing the work, it’s hard to forget the frustrated students who had to return time and again for assistance with a form that seemed impossible to unlock their future. But this year, those who have completed their FAFSA forms are in disbelief that it actually worked.

“I remember hearing more than once, ‘That’s it?’” said Ms. Miller. “‘Are you sure?’”

It seems like we’re finally there, but let’s hope we don’t let them down again.