my friend got a emergency loan from the financial aid office when her FAFSA was delayed, maybe ask about that??

Just wanted to add - if you're still waiting to hear back from your financial aid office about the exact disbursement date, try emailing them instead of calling. A lot of schools are swamped with phone calls right now but respond to emails within 24-48 hours. Ask specifically for your "aid disbursement timeline" and mention your class start date. They should be able to give you at least a rough estimate. Also, while you're waiting, check if your school has a Facebook group or subreddit where other students might have already posted about when their aid came through in previous semesters. Sometimes other students have better intel than the official channels!

This exact same thing happened to my son last month! The "processed but not transmitted" issue seems to be hitting a lot of families right now. Here's what finally worked for us: 1. I escalated through the FSA ombudsman office (studentaid.gov/feedback-ombudsman) - they have more authority than regular customer service and can actually track where applications get stuck in the system 2. Asked the school to check their "pending transmissions" queue - sometimes applications sit there waiting for manual review, especially if there were any data matching issues 3. The breakthrough came when I found out my son's SSN had a minor formatting issue that caused it to hang in limbo between systems. The ombudsman was able to identify and fix this within 48 hours Also, keep calling FSA every few days with your case number - I found that different agents have different levels of access and knowledge. One finally told me about a "manual transmission request" they could submit, which I wish someone had mentioned during my first 5 calls! The good news is once they identify the actual problem, it usually resolves pretty quickly. Don't let them just tell you to "wait" - keep pushing for specifics about what's causing the delay.

I'm dealing with something very similar right now! My FAFSA shows processed since early June, but when I called my school yesterday they said they're still waiting for it to come through their system. The financial aid counselor mentioned they've been getting a lot of calls about this lately. What's really frustrating is that I can see all my information in the StudentAid portal - my SAI, school codes, everything looks correct. But somehow there's this disconnect between "processed" and actually getting to the schools. I'm going to try the ombudsman route that Yuki mentioned, and definitely going to ask about that conditional aid package option from GalaxyGazer. Has anyone had luck with getting schools to at least give you an estimated aid package based on your SAI while this gets sorted out? I'm worried about missing deadlines for things like work-study positions while we wait for this technical mess to get resolved. Thanks for posting about this - it's honestly a relief to know I'm not the only one dealing with this nightmare!

Just saw on the news that Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona issued a formal apology for the FAFSA issues and promised complete transparency going forward. They've apparently added additional staff to process the recalculations faster. I'm still frustrated, but at least they're acknowledging the problem and trying to fix it.

I'm in the exact same boat and it's absolutely maddening! My daughter's FAFSA was also flagged for the SAI miscalculation and two of her top choice schools have put her aid packages on hold. What makes it worse is that we already submitted housing deposits based on the original numbers. Now we're stuck in limbo wondering if we'll even be able to afford those schools once the "corrected" calculations come through. The lack of communication and transparency from the Department of Education has been shocking. How do you launch a system affecting millions of families without proper testing? I've been checking studentaid.gov obsessively but there's never any real updates. Thanks for posting this - it helps to know we're not alone in this mess, even though I wouldn't wish this stress on anyone.

Based on everything you've shared, here's your action plan: 1. Wait for withdrawal option to appear (5-7 business days from original submission) 2. Contact schools now about deadline exceptions (with documentation) 3. Use Claimyr or similar service if you need to speak directly with FSA 4. After withdrawal processes, wait 1-2 days before starting new application 5. Follow the correct student-initiates process for the new application Your daughter will not lose aid eligibility due to this error as long as you communicate proactively with her schools. The most important financial aid deadlines are actually the schools' institutional aid deadlines, which are often different from their FAFSA priority dates. Be sure to check those as well. Hang in there - this year's FAFSA process has been challenging for almost everyone!

I went through something similar last year with my oldest daughter! The stress is absolutely real, but you're getting great advice here. One thing that really helped us was creating a shared Google doc with all the important dates, error messages, and contact attempts - it made communicating with the schools much easier when we had everything documented in one place. Also, don't beat yourself up too much about the mistake. The new FAFSA system is genuinely confusing, and even financial aid professionals are struggling with it this year. My daughter's college told us they've seen a 300% increase in these types of errors compared to previous years. You're definitely not alone, and the schools really are being understanding about it. One tip for when you do the new application: have your daughter sit right next to you when you both go through it step by step. We found it helpful to read each question out loud before answering to make sure we understood what they were asking. Good luck - you've got this! 💪

Thank you all for the helpful responses! This clears up a lot of my confusion. I'll stick with the FinAid calculator estimates for now since it seems like they're reasonably accurate for our situation. I'm relieved that his income won't completely eliminate his Pell eligibility since we definitely need the help with college costs.

Just wanted to add my experience as another data point - my daughter had $9,500 in scholarships plus about $6,800 from work-study last year, and we still received about 85% of the maximum Pell Grant. Our family income was around $35K. The key thing I learned is that the student income protection allowance really does make a difference - only the amount above that threshold gets assessed at 50%. One tip: make sure you're distinguishing between taxable and non-taxable scholarships when filling out the FAFSA. The non-taxable portion (tuition/fees/books) shouldn't be reported as income, only the taxable portion (room/board). This can make a meaningful difference in the calculation.