Thanks for the heads-up! I'll make sure we're prepared to cover summer costs if needed. Thankfully community college is much more affordable than the CSUs he was considering.

Just want to add my perspective as someone who went through this exact situation two years ago with my twin sons! The "greyed out" status can be nerve-wracking, but it's completely normal during processing. Here are a few additional tips that helped us: 1. Create a checklist of action items from all the great advice here - check school codes, verify deadlines, look for verification requests 2. Screenshot your FAFSA confirmation page if you haven't already - you'll need that reference number for phone calls 3. Community colleges are usually very helpful with financial aid questions, so don't hesitate to call their office directly 4. Keep checking your email AND your spam folder - sometimes FAFSA notifications end up there Your son is making a smart financial decision starting at community college. Even if there are delays with aid processing, the lower tuition costs give you more flexibility. Hang in there - this process is stressful for every parent the first time around!

Update: I finally got this resolved! For anyone with the same issue - it turned out my name change from marriage was indeed the problem. Had to call the FSA help line (took forever to get through) and they had to manually override the signature verification. My daughter's application is now processed and we got her SAI score. Thanks everyone for your help!

As someone who just went through the FAFSA process myself, I can relate to how frustrating this signature issue can be! Based on what I've seen in this thread, it sounds like your name change from marriage is likely the root cause. A few quick suggestions: 1) Make sure you're logging into studentaid.gov (the official site) with YOUR own FSA ID, not your daughter's, 2) Check that all your personal info (name, SSN, DOB) on your FSA ID matches exactly what's on your most recent tax return, and 3) If there's a mismatch due to your name change, you'll probably need to call FSA to get it manually corrected. The Claimyr service that Emma mentioned seems to be helping people avoid the long hold times - might be worth trying if the regular phone line isn't working. Good luck getting this sorted out!

THE ENTIRE FAFSA SYSTEM IS GARBAGE THIS YEAR!!! They had THREE EXTRA MONTHS to prepare and still rolled out a completely broken system. My daughter might lose scholarships because of these stupid technical problems. The Department of Education should be ASHAMED of this disaster. And now they keep extending deadlines because they know they screwed up so badly!!!!

UPDATE: We figured it out! The problem was that my ex-husband had changed his phone number last year but never updated it in his FSA ID account. When we updated his contact information, the verification texts started coming through immediately. We've now successfully added him as a contributor and my daughter can finish her application. Thanks everyone for your help!

I work in a college financial aid office, and I want to clarify something important: For students enrolling in Fall 2025, you MUST complete the 2025-2026 FAFSA which opens in December 2024. The FSA ID confusion is common. Think of it this way: the FSA ID is like your digital signature for federal student aid. The student needs one, and one parent/contributor needs one. The system allows up to 4 contributors potentially, but for most traditional families, it's just the student and one or both parents. Also, be aware that starting with the 2025-2026 FAFSA, the tax information required is from 2023 (two years prior to the start of the academic year). This is called prior-prior year reporting.

Welcome to the FAFSA journey! As someone who just went through this process with my oldest last year, I can tell you that you're asking all the right questions. One thing I wish I had known earlier - make sure to bookmark the Federal Student Aid website's FAFSA help section because you'll probably need to reference it multiple times throughout the process. Also, don't stress too much about the SSA validation taking a few days - that's totally normal. The system has gotten much better over the years. Good luck with everything, and remember that most college financial aid offices are incredibly helpful if you run into any roadblocks!

I'm dealing with a similar situation! My SAI dropped from $7,200 to $6,100 after the inflation adjustment, which should qualify my daughter for a partial Pell Grant. I called our school's financial aid office this morning and they told me they haven't received the updated ISIR yet, but they took down my information and said they'd prioritize reviewing it once it comes through. The financial aid counselor I spoke with was actually really helpful - she explained that they're seeing this issue with a lot of families and that they're prepared to quickly reprocess packages once they get the updated data. She also mentioned that if the Pell Grant gets added later, it would reduce our loan amounts which is exactly what we're hoping for. Definitely recommend calling rather than just waiting!

As someone new to navigating FAFSA, this thread has been incredibly eye-opening! I had no idea that SAI numbers could change after the initial calculation, or that there were inflation adjustments happening in the background. My family is still waiting on our initial FAFSA processing (submitted in late February but got caught up in verification), so I'm wondering - should I be proactively checking studentaid.gov regularly to watch for any changes to our SAI once it's finally calculated? It sounds like these updates can happen without much notice, and I definitely don't want to miss out on potential Pell Grant eligibility like what happened with Emma's situation. Are there any other "gotchas" or things to watch out for that newcomers to this process should know about?