Yes! We got it fixed using the steps from the thread. The key was having my daughter go to the very end of the application and click the final submit button even though it showed her signature was already there. After that, the status changed to \

Thanks for the update! Really appreciate the tips - will definitely try to do it during off-peak hours.

This is so typical of the new FAFSA system 🙄 My daughter and I spent WEEKS dealing with similar glitches. After dozens of attempts, we finally got through to an FSA agent who told us this is happening because the database tables for student names and parent-verified student names are DIFFERENT LENGTHS in their system!!! The agent manually fixed it on their end, but warned us that if we make any updates to the FAFSA later, we might encounter the same problem again. What an absolute disaster this rollout has been. Sadly, your only real solution is to get a human agent on the phone.

Just checking back - were you able to resolve this issue? If the previous suggestions didn't work, there's one more option: have the student grant online access to the parent through the "View My Student Aid" option on studentaid.gov instead of trying to link through the normal FAFSA process. This sometimes bypasses the name verification issue.

when my mom was helping with my fafsa she just kept trying different emails until one worked lol. ended up using her work email for some reason that one got the code right away. might be worth trying if u have access to different email types

One thing I haven't seen mentioned - check if your student's school financial aid office can help! Our university has FAFSA advisors who have direct contacts at FSA and can sometimes help resolve these technical issues faster than calling the main number. Might be worth asking if that's an option.

my kid got her signature email in spam folder so make sure he checks that

Update: The Department of Education just announced yesterday that they're implementing fixes for the duplicate signature request issue. They recommended that if you've already signed successfully (got to the final confirmation page), you can disregard any additional signature request emails for the next 14 days while they update their system. If your application shows "Being Processed" in the parent portal, that's a good sign that your signature was received. The student signature request emails are definitely taking longer than the original 1-3 day estimate - closer to 7-10 business days currently.

Since you mentioned having rental property income, make sure you understand how that will be reported on the FAFSA. For the 2025-2026 application, you'll need to report your 2023 tax information. Rental property income appears on Schedule E, and while the income is considered, the actual value of the property isn't directly reported on the FAFSA anymore under the simplified formula. However, business equity is still reportable if you have more than 100 employees in your self-employment business. The FAFSA Simplification reduced asset reporting requirements for many families, but those with more complex financial situations should definitely prepare documentation well in advance.

Has anyone had issues with the IRS Data Retrieval Tool? It never worked for us this year, kept saying our information didn't match their records even though we were looking right at our tax return while entering the info. Is there a trick to making it work? Because manually entering all the tax information was a nightmare.