I spoke with my daughter's financial aid counselor yesterday, and she gave me some interesting insight. According to her, the Department of Education had an internal analysis showing how the formula changes would affect different demographic groups. They knew the elimination of the sibling discount would hit middle-income families hard, but they believed the increased income protection allowance would offset it. Clearly, that offset isn't happening for many families. She also mentioned that they're seeing unprecedented numbers of appeals this year specifically citing the formula change impacts. Her advice was to be extremely specific in appeals - don't just say "the new formula hurt us" but instead say "we have multiple students in college, which the new formula doesn't account for, creating an additional financial burden of $X per year compared to last year's methodology.

I'm new to this whole FAFSA process (my oldest is a high school senior), but reading through all these comments is absolutely terrifying! I've been using online EFC calculators for the past year to estimate what we'd need to pay, and now I'm realizing those are all based on the OLD formula? Can someone help me understand - if I'm a single parent with an income of about $75k and will have just one child in college next year, am I likely to see a big difference between what the old calculators predicted and what the new SAI will be? Or are the major impacts mostly hitting families with multiple kids in college simultaneously? I'm trying to figure out if I need to completely redo my college savings expectations or if families like mine might not see dramatic changes. This whole thread has me second-guessing everything I thought I knew about financial aid!

Update: I followed everyone's advice and checked my top schools' portals. Two of them are requesting additional verification documents! I never would have known if I hadn't checked. Thanks everyone for helping this first-gen college student figure this out! I'm going to carefully compare all the offers when they come in.

So glad you're staying on top of everything! As a fellow first-gen student who went through this process a few years ago, I wanted to add one more tip: when you get your award letters, don't just look at the total aid amount - break down what's grants/scholarships (free money) vs. loans (money you'll pay back). Some schools might offer a bigger "aid package" but it's mostly loans, while another school might offer less total aid but more in grants. Also, if one school is your top choice but offers less aid, you can sometimes use a better offer from another school to negotiate - just call their financial aid office and explain the situation politely. Many schools will try to match competitive offers if they really want you! You've got this! The hardest part (getting FAFSA processed) is behind you.

dont schools need the SAI score to make financial aid packages? so even if they get the fafsa soon they might not have time to put together the aid package before his deadline?

Update: I took everyone's advice and contacted the school's financial aid office this morning. They were really helpful and said they'll make a note in my son's file that the FAFSA was recently updated to include their school. They also said they typically receive FAFSA data within a week of being added, but can make accommodations if there are processing delays. Such a relief! Thank you all for your help!

Hi Joanie! I can understand why those posts might seem contradictory - FAFSA rules around custody vs. guardianship can be really confusing, especially for grandparents in your situation. The key distinction is that custody and guardianship are different legal arrangements. With custody, you may have physical care of your grandchild but the parents still retain their legal rights. With legal guardianship, you've been granted broader legal authority by a court. For FAFSA purposes, what matters is who provides more than 50% of the student's support and who the student lived with most in the 12 months prior to filing. If you're the custodial grandparent providing the majority of support, you would typically be considered the parent on the FAFSA. However, since every situation is unique and these rules can be complex, I'd strongly recommend contacting your school's financial aid office directly. They can review your specific legal documents and circumstances to give you the most accurate guidance for your FAFSA completion. Have you been able to speak with a financial aid counselor yet about your particular situation?

Quick update - if you're still having the signing issue, I just remembered another potential fix. Make sure your FSA ID password doesn't contain any special characters that look similar to others (like l vs I or O vs 0). The system sometimes misinterprets these during the signature authentication process. Also, check if your son accidentally entered any of your information differently than what's on your FSA ID (even small differences like "St." vs "Street" can cause the error).

So glad to hear you got it working, Fatima! For anyone else still struggling with this issue, I wanted to add that the FAFSA help Twitter account (@FederalStudentAid) has been pretty responsive lately with tech support questions. They can sometimes escalate cases or provide specific troubleshooting steps. Also, if you're really pressed for time with state deadlines, some states allow you to submit an estimated FAFSA and correct it later - might be worth checking your state's specific requirements. The email mismatch issue seems to be catching a lot of parents off guard this year!