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I just want to share another dimension to this. My wife is from South Korea, and while we file taxes jointly, some of her foreign accounts aren't technically reportable on US taxes due to certain thresholds. HOWEVER, all assets regardless of location or tax reporting status must be included on the FAFSA. We learned this the hard way when our son's university financial aid office verified our FAFSA and requested documentation for all assets. So definitely include everything!
Thank you everyone for your help! I went back and edited my contributor section to include ALL our household assets, including my husband's EU accounts (converted to USD with today's exchange rate). The form is now reprocessing, and my daughter should get her updated SAI score within 3-5 business days according to the confirmation message. This forum saved us from what could have been a major issue later on!
Just to add one more helpful tip - even though you can't submit the FAFSA for your son yet, you can still be preparing. Make sure you both create FSA IDs now (they take 1-3 days to process), calculate your Expected Family Contribution using online calculators, and research scholarship opportunities. Many merit scholarships have deadlines throughout his junior and senior years, so don't wait on those!
Great suggestion! I'll use this time to get our FSA IDs set up and start looking into scholarships. Is the Expected Family Contribution still called that? I thought I read somewhere they changed the name.
my daughter's school said the same thing! i was so confused because we already submitted something a few weeks ago... now im worried we did the wrong one. she's a senior this year tho, graduating in 2024. did we do the right one??
UPDATE: I took the advice from this thread and managed to get through to someone at FSA using that callback service someone mentioned. The agent was actually super helpful and confirmed there was an error in how my dependency override was processed. They're expediting a correction and said it should be updated in 5-7 business days. \n\nI also went to my school's financial aid office in person (thanks for that suggestion) and they issued me a temporary housing authorization while we wait for the SAI recalculation. Apparently lots of students are having similar issues this year.\n\nThanks everyone for the help! Still ridiculous it took 5 months for an email response though.
Great to hear! Make sure to follow up if you don't see the correction in 7 days - sometimes you need to keep pushing. And for anyone else reading this thread with dependency override issues, remember that you need to resubmit your override documentation each year. The override doesn't automatically carry forward, even though many other FAFSA elements now do.
Has your husband checked with the financial aid office at the school he's applying to? Sometimes they can see more information than we can on our accounts. My daughter's SAI wasn't showing online but when she called her school, they could see it in their system already!
UPDATE: Problem solved! I wanted to post our solution in case anyone else runs into this. We called the university financial aid office and they said they could see his SAI in their system. Apparently there's a glitch with some accounts where the SAI is being calculated but not displayed to students on studentaid.gov. The financial aid officer gave us the number and said this has been happening to quite a few people. Thanks everyone for your help!
Thanks for posting the update! This is really valuable information. The 2025-2026 FAFSA rollout has had numerous technical issues, and this display glitch is unfortunately affecting many applicants. I'm glad you were able to get your husband's SAI through the school. For anyone else experiencing this issue, contacting your school's financial aid office is often the fastest solution.
KaiEsmeralda
NOBODY TOLD ME federal aid doesn't work overseas!! my daughter is also going to school in England next year and we already did all the FAFSA stuff and she got offered a pell grant. are you saying she can't use that money??? this is so frustrating why doesn't the FAFSA site make this clear?!?!
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Gabriel Freeman
•Unfortunately, that's correct. Federal student aid (including Pell Grants) can only be used at eligible institutions, and very few foreign universities participate in the Federal Student Aid program. The FAFSA site does mention this in their FAQ section, but it's not prominently featured in the application process itself. I'd recommend: 1. Check if her specific UK university is on the Federal School Code List (unlikely but possible) 2. Look into private loans designed for international study 3. Research UK-specific scholarships for international students 4. Contact the international student office at her chosen university for funding options Sorry you're just finding this out now. It's a common point of confusion.
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Laura Lopez
I'm so stressed about this exact situation! My twins are both applying to colleges in the US and Canada, and I have no idea how to handle the FAFSA. Do I need to submit separate applications? Does Canada even use FAFSA? What happens if one goes to the US and one goes to Canada? Will it mess up their financial aid if I included both countries' schools? The FAFSA website is so confusing about international stuff!
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Millie Long
•Deep breath! This is manageable. Here's what you need to know: 1. Submit one FAFSA per student (one for each twin) 2. Canadian schools generally don't use FAFSA (they have their own financial aid systems) 3. On each FAFSA, list all the US schools they're applying to 4. If one twin attends a US school and one attends a Canadian school, it won't affect each other's aid The twin attending a US school can use their FAFSA for federal aid. The twin attending a Canadian school likely can't use federal aid unless their specific Canadian institution participates in the US federal aid program (very few do). I recommend contacting each Canadian school directly to ask about their financial aid process for US students.
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