oh also i forgot to say make sure ur using ur adjusted gross income (AGI) not just total income. we made that mistake at first and had to fix it. the AGI is after all the business deductions so its usually way lower than total income for small business owners!

After you update your FAFSA with your actual tax information, I would recommend following up with the financial aid office with an email confirming you've made the update. Include your daughter's student ID number and the date you made the correction. This creates a paper trail and can help prevent delays if there are any issues with the electronic updates. Also, if your income for 2022 ends up being significantly different than 2021 (either higher or lower), be prepared to explain this to the financial aid office. Large changes can sometimes trigger additional verification steps.

WHY is nobody talking about how COMPLETELY BROKEN the new FAFSA system is?!? This is my third kid going to college and I've NEVER had these problems before. The Department of Education should be ashamed of themselves for rolling out this disaster and then just leaving families to suffer. They've had MONTHS to fix these problems and nothing has improved. Now thousands of students across the country are at risk of not being able to attend school because some government bureaucrats couldn't build a functioning website. Absolutely infuriating.

Quick update on what finally worked for me: After getting through to FSA (using that Claimyr service I mentioned), I discovered our FAFSA was stuck because of an error with the parent contribution section. Even though we filled everything out correctly, their system had some glitch with how our W-2 info transferred. The agent manually overrode something in their system, and our SAI showed up in the school's system literally THE NEXT DAY. Federal loans were processed within a week after that. If you can just get someone on the phone who knows what they're doing, they can often fix these issues immediately. Hang in there - I know how stressful this is!

One more important thing to note: There are strict deadlines for FAFSA completion that vary by state and institution. Make sure your daughter completes her portion well before any priority deadlines for the schools she's applying to. Some schools award aid on a first-come, first-served basis, so you don't want to delay completion.

UPDATE: My daughter logged in and completed her portion last night! The status now shows fully completed and we got a confirmation email with our SAI calculation. Thank you everyone for your help and for calming me down! The FAFSA really needs to make their process and wording clearer.

Is anyone else FURIOUS that they completely revamped the FAFSA system this year and it's been nothing but problems?? My niece has been waiting since JANUARY and still doesn't have her SAI. Meanwhile my student loan payments are due AND I'm trying to figure out how to pay for her freshman year. The Department of Education should be ashamed of this disaster.

Update on processing times: I just attended a financial aid conference last week where FSA officials shared that they've added additional staff to process both online and paper submissions. They're now projecting 2-3 weeks for parent verification and about the same for mailed forms that are properly completed. The most common reason for delays is missing information or mismatched data (like a name spelled differently on tax forms vs. the FAFSA). Double-check that all your information exactly matches across all documents.

Just to add some clarification - when the form goes back to your daughter, she should see specific sections highlighted as needing attention. The most common sections that need completion after parent contribution include: 1. Review of parent-provided household information 2. Confirmation of special circumstances (if applicable) 3. The final submission section The good news is that once all contributors have provided their information, your daughter just needs to review and submit. The final SAI calculation can't be generated until she completes this step.

Financial aid advisor here. The new FAFSA is definitely causing confusion, but what you're experiencing is working as designed. The application now has conditional logic that determines what questions appear based on previous answers. After you completed your section as a parent contributor, the system likely generated new questions for your daughter based on your responses. For example, if your income falls below certain thresholds, additional questions about specific tax credits or benefits might appear. Also, there's now a mandatory student review of parent-provided information before final submission. This is actually a positive change as it helps catch potential errors before submission. My advice: Have your daughter log in and carefully check each section for completeness. The system should clearly indicate which sections still need attention.