wat about her getting a part time job at school? my kid works 20 hrs a week in the cafeteria and gets like 7,000 a year plus free meals when shes working. might help close the gap?

After seeing your responses, I think you should definitely pursue multiple options simultaneously. Apply for both private loans AND the Parent PLUS loan right away. With your credit score around 680 and some recent late payments, you might face challenges with private lenders. If you get approved for both, you can always decline one. But if you're denied for private loans, you'll already have the PLUS loan process underway. Also, absolutely contact the financial aid office about payment plans and emergency funding options. One other suggestion - check if your state has any last-minute grant programs or if there are professional organizations related to your daughter's major that offer emergency scholarships. Sometimes there are niche funding sources that aren't widely advertised.

Everyone here is giving you bad info. What's happening is that this year's FASFA is taking FOREVER to process because the whole system is broke. My son submitted his in JANUARY and we just got the SAI last week!!! The education department needs to fix their mess but meanwhile all students are suffering. It's not your fault, you probably did everything right, the system is just terrible.

UPDATE: Thank you all so much for your help! As @confused_parent suggested, I actually never completed the final submission step. I went back into my application and found I needed to confirm the review page and hit the final submit button. Now my status shows "FAFSA Correction Submitted" instead of "Started"! Now I just have to wait for processing, but at least it's in the system correctly. I'll also contact my school's financial aid office as suggested to let them know about the delay.

Just a thought - have you had your 2022 income reassessed using US tax rules? Sometimes foreign income that was taxable in your home country wouldn't be taxable here, or would be taxed differently. Might be worth consulting with a tax professional who specializes in international situations.

Update from my earlier comment: I just remembered that most schools have a specific form for reporting foreign income. It's usually called something like "Foreign Income Information Form" or "International Income Worksheet." Check the financial aid section of each college website - you'll likely need to fill this out in addition to the FAFSA.

lol mine took 2 weeks after processing to show up but my cousins showed up in like 2 days. its totally random.

UPDATE: My SAI finally appeared this morning! It took exactly 4 business days after the processing complete status. Thanks everyone for calming me down and helping me through this. Now onto figuring out what this SAI number actually means for my financial aid package... 😬

just wondering - did u file taxes with a filing extension last year? my cousins fafsa got stuck bcuz of that

UPDATE: Just called using the Claimyr service someone mentioned above and FINALLY got through to a real person! Our application was flagged because we have income from multiple states (I work remotely for a company in another state). The agent was able to add notes to our file and told me it should be processed within 3-5 business days now. Keeping my fingers crossed but at least now I know what's happening!