One more thing to consider: the 2023 income that's affecting your 2025-2026 FAFSA won't be relevant for your daughter's sophomore year FAFSA. The FAFSA now uses income from two years prior, so her 2026-2027 FAFSA will use your 2024 income (which won't include the IRA distribution). So even in the worst-case scenario where your appeal isn't successful, this is only affecting one year of aid eligibility. That doesn't solve your immediate problem, but it might provide some peace of mind for future planning.

I'm so sorry you're going through this stress! As someone who just went through the college application process with my own kid, I wanted to share that you should also look into your state's financial aid programs. Many states have their own grant programs that use different criteria than federal aid, and some are more forgiving about one-time income spikes like yours. Also, don't forget to check if your daughter qualifies for any merit-based scholarships at her school - these aren't affected by your SAI at all. Even if the appeal process takes time, having multiple financial aid strategies in place can help reduce the overall cost. You're being such a great advocate for your daughter by researching all these options. The fact that you eliminated that high-interest debt was actually a smart long-term financial move, even if it's causing short-term aid complications.

One more critical piece of advice: While you're waiting for the FSA resolution, contact each school where your daughter is applying and explain the situation. Ask them for an extension on their financial aid deadline due to a documented FAFSA technical issue. Many schools have institutional authority to grant extensions in cases like this. Request that they note in her file that there's an active FSA case regarding a birthdate correction. Provide them with any case numbers you have. Most financial aid offices are understanding about these technical issues, especially with all the problems in the new FAFSA system rollout this year. This creates a paper trail showing you've been proactive, which can help if you need to appeal any late penalties later.

As someone who just went through this nightmare with my own kid, I want to add one more potential solution that worked for us when everything else failed. If you have access to your daughter's high school guidance counselor, they often have direct contacts at Federal Student Aid for exactly these kinds of emergency situations. Our counselor was able to reach someone in FSA's Educational Partner Relations department who handles escalations from schools. They got our profile issue resolved in 3 business days when we'd been stuck for over a month going through regular channels. Also, make sure when you're documenting everything that you're noting the exact error message text - sometimes the IT team needs that specific language to identify what's blocking the save function. Screenshot the entire error page if possible, not just the message. Hang in there - this system is broken but there ARE people who can fix it once you reach the right department!

Just wanted to follow up - recently the Department of Education announced a special process for name/SSN mismatches for the 2025-2026 FAFSA. Your daughter's college financial aid office can now process a "provisional SAI" while name corrections are pending. Make sure to specifically request this when you contact them, as not all schools are automatically implementing this flexibility. The technical term they need to hear is "provisional processing exemption under the April 2025 guidance.

Wow, so glad to see this got resolved! I'm actually dealing with a similar issue right now where my son's middle name got swapped with his last name on the FAFSA. Reading through all these responses has been super helpful - I had no idea about the FC-023 form or the provisional processing exemption. Going to try that Claimyr service tomorrow morning to get through to FSA faster. It's crazy how many people are having name entry problems with this year's FAFSA! Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences and solutions.

This is such helpful information! I'm a first-generation college student and had no idea that family size could make such a huge difference in financial aid. My FAFSA has been submitted for months but now I'm wondering if I made any mistakes. Is there an easy way to check if all my information is correct, or should I just log back in and review everything line by line?

This is such a great reminder! I'm a college sophomore and just realized I never double-checked my family size from freshman year. My parents got divorced last year and my living situation changed, so I'm wondering if I need to update anything for next year's FAFSA. Does anyone know if changes in family structure (like divorce) affect how you count family size? I'm still claimed as a dependent by my mom but my dad remarried and has stepkids now. This whole process is so confusing but posts like this show how much money can be on the line!

One more tip: if you go to the "My Documents" section in your StudentAid.gov account, you should still be able to see the SAR (Student Aid Report) for all students you contributed to, even if their application doesn't show on your main dashboard. This can be a helpful workaround for checking the status of both kids' applications without having to log in and out of different accounts.

This thread has been so helpful! I'm dealing with the exact same situation and was panicking that we'd somehow lost our daughter's application. It's frustrating that this major change in how the dashboard works wasn't clearly communicated anywhere in the FAFSA instructions. The fact that so many families are calling FSA about this shows they really dropped the ball on explaining the new multi-contributor visibility system. At least now I know our application is safe and just living on my husband's dashboard instead of mine. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences!