btw did ur daughters SAI change much from freshman to sophomore yr? my kids went up by like 3000 even tho our income stayed the same 🙄

To address the SAI change question that came up: For 2025-2026 FAFSA renewals, several factors can affect your SAI even if your income stays the same: 1. Assets are assessed annually - changes in savings, investments, or property values impact SAI 2. Family size changes affect the calculation 3. Number of family members in college drastically impacts SAI 4. Age of oldest parent (protection allowances increase as parents approach retirement) 5. State of residence (some state tax allowances differ) Also, the 2025-2026 formula has some adjustments to income protection allowances that could affect your calculation differently than last year. If your SAI seems unexpectedly different, request a professional judgment review from your daughter's financial aid office.

Oh! Almost forgot to mention - make sure u look into the interest rates for this year's federal loans. I think they just got announced and they're higher than last year. I think Direct Loans for undergrads are around 5.5% now and Parent PLUS is even higher like 8% or something crazy. Still way better than private loans tho!!

I checked with the school's financial aid office today, and they confirmed we need to accept the loans in their portal by June 30th and complete the MPN and entrance counseling by July 15th. We're going to get that done this weekend. They also mentioned that for Parent PLUS loans, I need to apply separately on studentaid.gov and pass a credit check. Thanks everyone for your help! This process is way more complicated than I expected, but I feel like we know what to do now.

Financial Aid Administrator here. For the 2025-2026 FAFSA, here's what you need to know: 1. A missing parent signature means your FAFSA is incomplete, not just waiting for corrections. The FSA system won't calculate your SAI until all required signatures are submitted. 2. Your parent needs to create their own FSA ID (if they haven't already) and sign electronically on studentaid.gov. 3. Mid-April is still plenty of time to complete your FAFSA for most schools' priority deadlines, including your May 1st deadline. 4. For the income corrections you mentioned: these can only be made AFTER your FAFSA is fully processed with all signatures. The correction process is available year-round. 5. Contact your school's financial aid office immediately to explain the situation. Many schools will hold your place in line for priority aid if you've submitted by their deadline but are dealing with FAFSA processing issues. Remember that this year's FAFSA has experienced significant delays due to the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation. Most schools are being more flexible with deadlines as a result.

My kid's FAFSA had this same issue! We thought both parents had signed but apparently my husband's signature didn't go through properly. We fixed it in early March and it took about 4 days to process after that. Then we were able to make income corrections the following week. So yes, mid-April is fine to make corrections, but get that signature issue fixed ASAP!

just be prepared for them to lose your paper application too... they "lost" my son's TWICE and we had to resubmit. make copies of EVERYTHING!!!!

UPDATE: Based on some of the advice here, I called FSA again today and specifically asked for a supervisor who specializes in identity verification issues. After explaining I had already called multiple times, they transferred me to someone in the "identity resolution team" who immediately spotted the issue - my middle name was showing up in their system but I'd left it blank on my FAFSA. Such a simple fix that previous reps never caught. Try this specific approach before resorting to paper!

When I had this problem I just drove to my college financial aid office and filled out a paper form saying I tried to submit. They put a note on my account and I got my aid without any issues when the site came back up. In-person always works better than emails for this stuff.

Good news - I just checked the Federal Student Aid Twitter account and they've announced maintenance should be completed by 6AM Eastern tomorrow. Make sure you're ready to submit as soon as it's back up. And yes, calling your financial aid office works fine too - just document the date and time of your call and who you spoke with. If possible, ask them to send you an email confirming your conversation about the extension.