Here's an important update that wasn't mentioned in the podcast: The Department of Education just announced they've processed over 3.5 million FAFSA forms as of last week, which is significant progress compared to where they were a month ago. They're now processing approximately 250,000 forms per week. If your daughter submitted her FAFSA within the past 6-8 weeks, there's a good chance it will be processed soon. The SAI (Student Aid Index) calculations are being sent to colleges in batches, and colleges typically need 1-2 weeks after receiving the SAI to prepare aid packages. Regarding the May 1st deadline - the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has officially requested all colleges extend their deadlines. Most are complying, even if they haven't updated their websites yet. You have legitimate grounds to request extensions from any school that hasn't received your FAFSA data.

my sons freinds dad works at a college and said ALOT of kids aren't even bothering with FAFSA this year because of the mess. there gonna be like 40% less pell grants given out because of all this!!! government mess

The FAFSA system gets incredibly bogged down in September and October. Their servers simply can't handle the traffic volume during peak filing season. I've been through this four times with my kids! One trick that hasn't been mentioned: try accessing the site using your phone's cellular data instead of your home wifi. Sometimes ISP routing or security settings can interfere with certain government websites.

UPDATE: IT WORKED!!! Combination of things that finally got me through: using Chrome incognito mode + creating a brand new email + manually typing all fields (no autofill) + using my phone's hotspot instead of home wifi. Plus I did it at 5:30 AM when server traffic was probably low. THANK YOU ALL for your suggestions! Now on to actually completing the FAFSA itself... 😅

Financial aid officer here. This is a known issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. When the student and parent sections are completed more than 72 hours apart, the system sometimes fails to properly link the signatures. Here's what to do: 1. Have your daughter log in to her studentaid.gov account 2. Go to the FAFSA application and navigate to the Sign & Submit section 3. She'll need to re-sign (the information is all still there) 4. Then you should receive a new confirmation email within 24-48 hours 5. The SAI calculation typically follows 3-5 business days after that If you continue having issues, you can request a signature override, but you'll need to speak directly with an FSA agent for that. Be aware that call volumes are extremely high right now.

Update: Fixed our issue! We had my daughter log back in, and there was indeed a yellow warning icon on her dashboard about incomplete signature. She had to go through the FSA ID verification again (using her driver's license) and then re-sign. The system immediately sent a new confirmation email saying both signatures were received! Now we're waiting for the SAI calculation. Thanks everyone for your help!

Just as an update - the Department of Education actually issued a formal apology about those erroneous forgiveness emails. They've implemented new verification procedures to prevent similar mistakes. I want to address a misconception I'm seeing in this thread - Parent Plus loans DO have some flexibility, but you need to be proactive. After consolidation into a Direct Consolidation Loan, you can access Income-Contingent Repayment (ICR), which caps payments at 20% of your discretionary income. It's not as generous as the plans available for student borrowers, but it's something. Also, check if you might be eligible for the SAVE plan, which has replaced REPAYE for many borrowers and can offer better terms depending on your situation.

One important distinction to make: Parent Plus loans themselves aren't directly eligible for the SAVE plan. However, once you consolidate them into a Direct Consolidation Loan, you can use the Income-Contingent Repayment plan, which is different from SAVE but still provides some income-based relief. The studentaid.gov site has a loan simulator tool that can help you see what your payments might look like under different plans. You'll need to log in with your FSA ID. If you're having trouble navigating the site or understanding your options, calling FSA directly is your best bet for personalized guidance.

This happened to my FAFSA too. My school financial aid office told me it could change my SAI calculation by quite a bit depending on my family's specific financial situation. In my case, it actually lowered my SAI by about 2000 points which meant I qualified for more aid! So this recalculation might actually be good news for you.

Just want to update - my son's corrected FAFSA was sent to his school yesterday, and they've already updated his financial aid package. The whole process took about 10 days from when we got that email. The good news is his SAI actually went down by about $3,500, which means more grants! So definitely wait for the recalculation before making any decisions.