Just to give you a complete answer on your original question - when your son finally decides on a school, you don't need to remove the other schools from your FAFSA. The schools he doesn't attend simply won't use the FAFSA information. But the schools DO see all other schools you've added, so some people prefer to remove schools they're no longer considering once a decision is made.

One final important note for your summer semester planning: Make sure your son hasn't exhausted his annual loan limits from the previous terms. If he's already used his full annual Federal Direct Loan eligibility during fall/spring, he may not have loan eligibility remaining for summer unless he advances to the next grade level. This is particularly important for dependent students with the annual loan limits of $5,500 for freshmen, $6,500 for sophomores, and $7,500 for juniors and seniors. Pell Grant recipients may be eligible for additional summer Pell (sometimes called Year-Round Pell) if they enroll at least half-time in the summer term.

UPDATE: The Department of Education just released a fix for this specific issue yesterday. If your spouse has an SSN but you don't, try these steps: 1. Log out completely and clear your browser cache 2. Have your spouse log in with their FSA ID first 3. Then have them select the "Complete contributor information" option 4. They should enter their information including SSN 5. Once they complete their section, then you can log back in to finish the application This bypasses the error that happens when trying to add a contributor from your account directly.

I faced this exact issue last month. The key thing that worked for me was making sure my husband's name was entered EXACTLY as it appears on his Social Security card, not as it appears on our tax return (which has his second last name included). Also, after creating the FSA ID, we had to wait a full 3 days before it would link properly. The system is very picky about these details for joint filers with one person lacking SSN. Hope this helps! The new FAFSA is so much harder for families like ours compared to previous years.

There's something called the "financial aid gap" that many families in your income bracket experience. With an SAI around 21500, you're in a challenging position - not demonstrating enough financial need for significant need-based aid, but still not able to comfortably afford full cost. A few technical points: 1. Your SAI of 21500 means the formula expects your family to contribute about that much per year toward educational costs 2. Pell Grant eligibility for 2025-2026 cuts off around an SAI of 19500, so you're just outside that range 3. Many state schools reserve their institutional grants for SAIs under 10000 4. Merit aid is separate from FAFSA and increasingly competitive I would recommend looking at schools known for generous merit aid, as they often use academic scholarships to attract students in your daughter's position. Also, consider if your financial situation has recently changed - job loss, medical expenses, etc. These can be grounds for a professional judgment review.

I went through this EXACT situation with my son last year. Here's the thing: what financial aid offices tell you over the phone in January/February is often their most conservative estimate. They don't want to promise aid they can't deliver. The actual award letters we received in March were MUCH better than what they initially told us. With your daughter's impressive stats, I'm surprised none of the schools mentioned merit scholarships. Those are often handled by admissions rather than financial aid. Have you checked with the admissions offices as well? Sometimes they have separate scholarship applications that aren't linked directly to FAFSA.

When I was dealing with my son's verification last month I called the Federal Student Aid hotline and eventually got through to someone who told me the tax document requests are batched and sometimes go out after initial processing. She said as long as you used the IRS Data Retrieval Tool originally it should transfer automatically without you having to do anything. Took about 10 days for his verification to complete then everything was good. Super annoying but worked out fine in the end.

my brother works in financial aid at a university and he says this is happening to TONS of people this year. the new fafsa system is just a mess tbh

wait im confused... i thought FAFSA uses like your parents income anyway unless ur over 24? does ur own income even matter that much on fafsa calculations?

One more important point: October 1, 2024 is when the 2025-2026 FAFSA application opens. Even though the federal deadline extends into 2026, submitting as close to October 1st as possible is ALWAYS recommended for maximum aid consideration. February is definitely cutting it close for many schools' priority deadlines.