I'm literally at my wit's end with this FAFSA situation. I completed applications for both my kids back in January. My daughter's application went through perfectly - her school has confirmed receipt and everything's on track. But my son's application? Total nightmare! When I log into either the parent or student FSA account, it shows as 'processed' with an SAI number and everything. But his university financial aid office keeps insisting they haven't received ANYTHING from FAFSA - they say his file is completely blank in their system! I've called the Federal Student Aid number at least a dozen times but can never get through to an actual human being. Just endless hold music or disconnections. Has anyone dealt with this weird disconnect between FAFSA saying 'processed' but the school saying nothing was received? What am I missing here? His fall tuition deadline is coming up fast and I'm seriously panicking.

I'm trying to figure out the next steps after receiving my financial aid package. The school portal shows federal loans and a work-study option, but I'm confused about what happens when I hit the "accept" button. If I accept the federal student loans through my school's portal, does that mean I HAVE to take them? Or does accepting just mean I can access them later if needed? I don't want to commit to debt if I can avoid it. Also, I was offered work-study ($3,800/year), but have no clue how to actually get a job. Does the school assign me somewhere? Do I need to apply for positions? When should I start this process? My school's financial aid office is swamped right now and takes forever to respond to emails. Any insights from people who've been through this would be super helpful!

This is so frustrating! Did anyone else have trouble logging back into their FAFSA account after that 3-day review period? It's been THREE WEEKS now and I still can't access my account! 😫 Keep getting error messages or the login page just refreshes without letting me in. My daughter has committed to a college basketball scholarship and is supposed to start summer classes in less than a month. The financial aid office keeps telling us they need our FAFSA info finalized ASAP or her athlete housing won't be processed in time. I've tried calling FSA but either get disconnected or told the wait is 2+ hours. Any advice on how to get back into the account? Or should I just start a new application from scratch at this point? So stressed about this holding up her athletic scholarship!

I'm in a weird spot with my son's FAFSA application for 2025-2026. We're at the signature stage, but I'm having problems on the parent side. Whenever I try to complete my portion, it keeps getting stuck on the parent/partner information page where we need to verify SSN info. It just loads endlessly or kicks me back to the same page. My son has completed all his sections and is ready to sign his portion. Should he go ahead and electronically sign his part now, or should he wait until I can fix whatever is going on with my parent contribution section? I'm worried if he signs now, he won't be able to make changes later if needed. Has anyone dealt with this problem before? The whole process is way more complicated than when I filed for financial aid years ago!

I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure out where to find our SAI scores! I submitted the FAFSA for both my twins back on February 5th and was told we'd receive emails with their Student Aid Index numbers. It's been over 6 weeks now and nothing has shown up in either my inbox or my spam folder. I've logged into studentaid.gov multiple times but I'm not seeing the SAI displayed anywhere obvious. Am I missing something? Do I need to call someone? Their college deposit deadlines are coming up in a few weeks and we really need to compare financial aid packages ASAP.