FAFSA
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FAFSA deadline panic - stuck on submission page for weeks now
I am literally losing my mind trying to submit my FAFSA for the 25-26 school year. It's already April and I STILL can't get past the submission page! Every time I click submit, the page just refreshes back to the beginning of the form summary. Does ANYONE else have this problem?? My college's priority deadline was March 15 and I'm terrified I'll lose all my financial aid. I've tried different browsers, clearing cookies, even using my roommate's laptop! Nothing works! Called the Fed Aid number 6 times but keep getting disconnected after 45+ mins on hold. I NEED this aid for next semester. Is the system just broken or am I doing something wrong? Getting desperate!!
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FAFSA loans per semester vs. annual: Which saves more money?
I'm trying to figure out the best strategy for my student loans next year. Would it be smarter to take out a separate Federal loan for each semester (fall and spring individually) or just do one loan for the whole academic year? I heard something about interest starting at different times depending on how you do it, but I'm not sure if that's true. Does anyone know if there's a financial advantage either way? My total aid package for 2025-2026 is about $16,000 and I need to decide pretty soon how to set it up.
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i always do semester loans bc i sometimes take summer classes and it's easier to keep track of which loan is for which term but that's just me lol
Thats smart!!! I get confused with all the different loan stuff on my account... wish they'd make it easier to see which is which!
One more consideration: if you're uncertain about whether you'll attend both semesters (perhaps due to an internship opportunity, study abroad, or other reasons), semester loans give you more control and prevent overborrowing. Just remember that each semester loan will have its own origination fee (around 1.057% for Direct Loans in the 2025-2026 award year), but that's applied regardless of how you structure the loans.
Thanks for all the help everyone! I think I'm going to go with the annual loan since my plans are pretty set for the full year, and it seems like it'll be simpler for repayment later. Really appreciate all the different perspectives!
FAFSA parent loan for grad school shows $142K balance despite payments - how is this possible?
I'm absolutely stunned right now. Just logged into the DOE portal to check my loan status for my daughter's upcoming FAFSA application, and discovered I still owe $142K on MY student loans from law school (1992-1995)! According to their records, the original amount was $263,899 which seems impossibly high for that time period. I've been making payments for over 20 years and have documentation showing I've paid around $125K total. MOHELA's site shows a zero balance with a congratulations message, but DOE says I still owe $142K! How can there be such a massive discrepancy? Did anyone else discover shocking loan balances when preparing for their kid's FAFSA? I'm honestly done - this has to be some kind of massive error. Has anyone successfully disputed DOE records when they conflict with the loan servicer?
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Have you checked your credit report to see what's being reported there? That might help clarify things. If MOHELA is showing paid in full but DOE isn't, your credit report might show which version lenders are seeing. Really important to get this fixed if you're planning any major purchases in the near future.
FAFSA approved then got IRS tax info request email - site down for maintenance?
I'm so confused right now! Our FAFSA was fully completed and processed weeks ago. We even received a financial aid offer letter from my daughter's top choice school (with a pretty decent SAI score). But this morning I got this weird email from FAFSA saying: "Based on your consent for the use and disclosure of federal tax information, the U.S. Department of Education's office of Federal Student Aid requested your 2022 federal tax information from the IRS. Watch for additional notifications from FAFSA® regarding the processing of the application." What the heck is going on?? I thought this was all done! And now when I try to log into studentaid.gov to check, the entire site is down for maintenance. Is this normal? Are they re-verifying our info or something? Has anyone else gotten this email AFTER their FAFSA was already processed?
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ok everyone keeps saying this is normal but MY COUSINS FAFSA got totally rejected after getting one of these emails!!!! they had already gotten a big aid package from State and then after this "verification" their SAI went up by like $8000 and they lost a grant!!!
That situation is different - it sounds like your cousin's FAFSA had incorrect information that was caught during verification. If you use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool and report all income correctly, verification won't change anything. The only time SAI numbers change dramatically is when there's unreported income or incorrect figures on the original application.
FAFSA deadline approaching - self-employed tax info delay with accountant
My husband and I are both self-employed (he has a construction business, I'm a freelance designer) and our accountant is STILL sitting on our tax information we need for the FAFSA. It's been 3 weeks since we requested it! We have absolutely no idea what numbers to use for our business income/expenses on the FAFSA form, and I'm getting seriously worried about missing deadlines. Has anyone else dealt with filing FAFSA as self-employed? Do we wait for the accountant or is there a way to estimate? Our daughter's school is already sending reminders about priority deadlines coming up in February.
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when i did my fafsa they just asked for my adjusted gross income from my taxes, not all the schedule c stuff separately? maybe its different for different people idk
You're right that the FAFSA asks for AGI from your tax return, but the system also looks at other forms like Schedule C for business owners. Your AGI already includes your net business income/loss, but they may request additional information about business assets over certain thresholds. The simplified FAFSA has made this less complicated, but self-employed people often still need to provide more details.
I wanted to update everyone - we got our 2023 tax transcript directly from the IRS website and were able to complete our daughter's FAFSA yesterday! We didn't need to wait for our accountant at all. The process was much easier than I expected once we had the right information. Thank you all for your help and advice!
That's great news! Make sure to save a PDF copy of your submitted FAFSA in case there are any verification requests later. Some schools will ask for additional documentation, especially for self-employed parents. Having everything saved in one place makes that process much smoother.
Good idea - just downloaded a copy and saved it to our financial aid folder. I'll let our accountant know we didn't need his special worksheet after all! 😅
Ravi Patel
Any updates??? Did those suggestions work for you? I'm still stuck in FAFSA limbo over here and getting more desperate by the day. My school's final deadline is May 1st.
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Emma Johnson
AuthorYES!! IT WORKED! I followed the advice from @profile2 with the incognito mode in Chrome plus using my phone hotspot instead of wifi. The submission finally went through last night! Got the confirmation email and everything. Try that exact combination - it seems like the wifi network might have been part of my problem all along.
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Chloe Martin
Glad to hear you got it working! For anyone else with this issue, I should add that the Education Department announced yesterday they've extended priority deadlines specifically because of these technical problems. Most schools are being flexible with the FAFSA deadlines this year due to the well-documented system issues. If you're still struggling, bring documentation of your attempts to your financial aid office - screenshots of errors, dates of support calls, etc. Many schools have processes for manual verification when students have made good-faith efforts to submit.
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Emma Johnson
AuthorThat's really good to know about the extended deadlines! I was so stressed about missing out on aid. I'm going to email my financial aid office anyway just to make sure they know I had technical difficulties in case anything is missing from my submission.
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