One final note: If your daughter's financial situation has remained consistent, she should still be eligible for similar Pell Grant funding. However, remember that the total Pell eligibility is limited to the equivalent of 12 semesters (or about 6 years) of funding throughout her undergraduate career. The system automatically tracks this, but it's good to be aware if she's planning to take more than 4 years to complete her degree.

does anyone know if they fixed those glitches from last years FAFSA? my parents had to retry like 6 times to get linked to the IRS data!!!!

wait my fasfa says i need to fix somthing too but i cant figure out what?? where is this SAI report thing everyone is talking about?

UPDATE: I finally figured it out! For anyone with the same problem - I logged into my son's account, clicked on his FAFSA application, then found a small link that said "View Student Aid Index Report". The PDF had a section called "Items Flagged for Review" which showed we had entered conflicting information about our mortgage interest deduction. Plus I had to sign again as the parent contributor. Thank you all for your help! Now I just hope we haven't missed any important deadlines...

I just wanted to circle back to your original question about loans not affecting YOUR credit. To be perfectly clear:\n\n• Federal Direct Loans (both subsidized and unsubsidized) are in your SON'S name only and won't affect your credit\n• They don't require a credit check\n• They offer income-based repayment options after graduation\n• They qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness if he works in qualifying jobs\n• They can be consolidated and have fixed interest rates\n\nThese are BY FAR the best option, but unfortunately, they're limited to that $5,500 freshman year amount.\n\nFor everything beyond that, either you take Parent PLUS (in your name, affects your credit) or your son takes private loans (likely needs you as cosigner, which affects your credit).\n\nThere's no perfect solution that meets all your criteria, but I would absolutely max out the Federal Direct Loans first, then consider a combo of payment plans, work-study, and possibly Parent PLUS for the smallest amount possible.

Thank you for breaking this down so clearly! I definitely understand better now. It sounds like we should focus on maximizing all other options (scholarships, payment plans, work-study) to minimize what we need to borrow beyond the Federal Direct Loans. I appreciate everyone's help - this process is so much more complicated than I expected!

UPDATE: Firefox worked!!! I finally got the e-signature page to load completely and was able to sign. For anyone else having this issue - try Firefox, disable pop-up blockers, and clear your cache first. Thanks everyone for the help!

Just wanted to share that I also got mine to work! I ended up having to call FSA directly (used that Claimyr service someone mentioned above to avoid the long hold) and they helped me troubleshoot. Turns out my account was partially locked because I had too many failed login attempts. They reset something on their end and then Firefox + clearing cache worked for me too!

Update: If you're still having this issue, there's an emergency workaround that was just implemented. Have your daughter call the FSA hotline at 1-800-433-3243 and request a "Contributor Access Code" for both parents. They can generate these codes that bypass the email system entirely. The student will need to provide: 1. Her FSA ID username 2. The full name of each parent/contributor 3. The emails that were originally entered Once she gets the access codes, she can send them to you directly and you can use them on the contributor portal without needing the email invitation. This is a temporary solution they've implemented because so many families are having this exact problem with the new system.

UPDATE: We got it fixed! After trying everything, what finally worked was having my daughter use her laptop instead of her phone to resend the invitations. For some reason, the mobile version wasn't properly triggering the emails. We both received the contributor invitations within minutes after she used her laptop. We've completed our portions and submitted everything before the deadline! For anyone else having this issue - try using a computer rather than a mobile device, and make sure your daughter logs completely out and back in before resending the invitations. Thanks to everyone who offered advice!