My daughter had this problem for her freshman year application (2024-2025) and her college actually gave her an extension on their priority aid deadline because so many students were having FAFSA problems. Definitely contact your school!!

I'm dealing with a similar situation right now! My FAFSA was submitted in early January and I just got the missing signature notification yesterday. Reading through these responses is really helpful - it sounds like the 10-14 day wait for the corrections portal is pretty standard this year. I had no idea about the SAI replacing the EFC either, so thanks to everyone sharing that info. Going to contact my college's financial aid office first thing Monday morning to let them know about the delay. This whole process has been so much more stressful than I expected!

wait no one mentioned this but make sure u know which parent is signing for the loan!!! my ex-husband signed for our daughter's PLUS loan and I had thought we were splitting it but legally its ALL his responsibility. caused a huge fight when he realized lol

As someone new to navigating Parent PLUS loans, I really appreciate all the detailed information everyone has shared here! I'm in a similar situation with my daughter starting college next year. One thing I'm still unclear on - if the school underestimates the off-campus housing costs in their COA (like Sofia mentioned), can you request to borrow additional funds later in the year if needed? Or do you have to get it right the first time when you apply? Also, does anyone know if there are any tax implications for the parent when these refund funds are used for housing and books? Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Thank you all so much for the helpful responses! Just to summarize what I've learned: 1. Don't report 401k or any retirement accounts on the FAFSA 2. CSS Profile (for private schools) might have different rules 3. The new SAI formula focuses more on income than assets anyway 4. Keep good records in case we're selected for verification I feel much better about tackling this application now. I was worried we'd be penalized for doing the responsible thing by saving for retirement!

You're absolutely right to be cautious about this! I just went through the FAFSA process with my son last year and had the same confusion. The key thing to remember is that retirement accounts (401k, 403b, traditional IRA, Roth IRA) are completely excluded from FAFSA asset reporting. This is actually written right into the federal guidelines because they don't want to discourage people from saving for retirement. Your husband's $78k in his 401k should NOT be reported anywhere on the form. The only time retirement accounts might matter is if you took early distributions - then those would count as income. But the account balance itself? Nope, leave it off completely. You're doing great by asking these questions upfront!

UPDATE: Thank you all for your helpful advice! I called three of my schools this morning and it turns out two of them actually DID have my information despite my FAFSA account still showing 'pending'! The third school confirmed they don't have it yet. I'm going to try calling Federal Student Aid tomorrow to see if there's any issue with my application being sent to the remaining schools. For anyone else dealing with this - definitely call your schools directly as several people suggested here!

That's awesome that you got it sorted out with most of your schools! This is exactly why calling directly is so important - the FAFSA portal status doesn't always reflect what schools actually have. For future students reading this thread, this is a perfect example of why you shouldn't panic if your status shows "pending" for weeks. The system has some serious communication issues between different databases this year. Hope your remaining school gets the info soon!

Update: I got it working! Turns out I needed to log in with my FSA ID (not my son's) AND my son had entered a slightly different email for me than the one I used for my FSA ID. Once he corrected that and re-sent the invitation, I could see the contributor form in my "Help My Student" section. Thanks everyone for your help! For anyone else having this problem, double check ALL your info matches exactly.

I'm so glad you got it figured out! I went through the exact same frustration with my daughter's FAFSA earlier this year. The email matching issue seems to trip up a lot of parents - I wish they made that clearer in their instructions. It's such a relief when you finally see that "Help My Student" section populate with the actual forms you need to fill out. The whole process is stressful enough without having to troubleshoot technical issues on top of everything else!