Your husband's job loss is absolutely grounds for a professional judgment review! Make sure to contact each school's financial aid office ASAP with documentation of the change in circumstances. This could significantly improve your aid packages. For anyone in this situation, here's what you'll typically need to provide: 1. Letter explaining the change in circumstances 2. Documentation (termination letter, final pay stub, unemployment benefits statement) 3. Estimate of current year income 4. The school's specific professional judgment form (each has their own) Don't wait until you receive the initial award letters - you can start this process now. And definitely follow up by phone if you don't hear back within a week or two of submitting the documentation.

As someone who went through this process with my twin daughters last year, I can tell you that the waiting is definitely the hardest part! Here are a few additional tips that helped us stay organized: 1. Create a simple tracking spreadsheet with columns for each school, application deadline, FAFSA submission date, award letter received date, and decision deadline. This helped us see at a glance which schools we were still waiting on. 2. Set up a dedicated email folder for college financial aid correspondence - things can get overwhelming when you're managing multiple schools. 3. Don't panic if you don't hear anything by early April. We got one daughter's award letter literally 5 days before the May 1st deadline, and it ended up being her best offer! 4. Consider reaching out to current students or parents in your area who attend the schools your daughter is considering. They can give you real-world insight into actual costs beyond what the award letters show. The job loss situation you mentioned could actually work in your favor for aid appeals. Schools are generally very understanding about unexpected financial changes, especially recent job loss. Good luck to your daughter - sounds like she's got some great options ahead of her!

My daughter went through this exact situation last year! I remember being so confused about why we needed to submit another FAFSA when she'd just been approved for Spring. What nobody told me was that some schools have scholarship programs with January deadlines that require the FAFSA to already be processed! She missed out on applying for a $2500 departmental scholarship because our FAFSA wasn't completed in time. Learn from my mistake!

As someone who just went through this process myself, I can confirm that yes, you absolutely need to complete the 2025-2026 FAFSA now even though your daughter just got approved for Spring 2025. I made the mistake of thinking I had more time since we "just finished" the last application, but I quickly learned that financial aid operates on academic year cycles, not calendar years. The 2024-2025 FAFSA only covers through Spring 2025, so if your daughter plans to attend Summer 2025 or Fall 2025, you'll need the new application. I ended up rushing to complete ours in early January and barely made our school's priority deadline of February 1st. My advice? Get it done this week while you still have all your documents organized from the previous application!

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses! I feel much more confident about writing our appeal now. I'm going to focus on: 1. The specific reduced hours my spouse is facing at work with pay stubs to show the difference 2. Our medical expenses from the past year with documentation 3. A breakdown of our monthly budget showing the gap between what we can save and what the EFC/SAI expects I appreciate all your advice and experiences. I'll update once we hear back about our appeal!

Just wanted to add one more thing that helped us - if your school has a financial aid counselor or advisor, try to schedule a meeting with them before submitting your appeal. We did this and they actually helped us identify additional circumstances we hadn't considered (like the fact that we support my elderly parent financially even though they don't live with us). The counselor also gave us specific language to use in our appeal letter and told us exactly what documentation they needed. It made the whole process much smoother and I think having their input beforehand really strengthened our case. Most schools offer these consultations for free, so it's worth asking!

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses! Just to make sure I've got this 100% clear - for my 2025-26 FAFSA, I'll report the TOTAL child support received during 2023 tax year (Jan-Apr for older child + full year for younger child). I won't try to allocate different amounts to each child's separate FAFSA, since the child support question is in the parent section that applies to the whole household. Is that correct?

Perfect! You've got it figured out now. Just to add one more tip - keep good records of those child support payments (bank statements, payment apps, etc.) in case you need to verify the amounts later. Some schools do request documentation during the verification process. Good luck with your kids' financial aid applications!

Just be prepared - even when you do everything RIGHT they might still flag your application for verification. My daughter's FAFSA was flagged last year and we had to submit extra documentation even though we did EVERYTHING correctly. The whole system is designed to make things difficult!!

As someone who works in financial aid, I can confirm that using your maiden name (the name on your Social Security card) is absolutely the correct approach. The FAFSA system is designed to match information across federal databases, and any discrepancy between your name on the FAFSA and your Social Security records will cause processing delays. Your son's different last name won't affect his eligibility or cause any issues - the system tracks family relationships through SSNs and other identifying information, not matching surnames. You made the right choice!