Anyone else notice how EVERY SINGLE YEAR they manage to break something new with the FAFSA? Last year it was the income verification, the year before the website crashed constantly... I swear they do this on purpose to reduce the number of people who successfully apply! My daughter lost a $5000 scholarship last year because her FAFSA wasn't processed in time due to their errors!!

Update on my situation - finally got our signature issue fixed this morning! Called FSA at exactly 8:00 AM Eastern when their phone lines open and only had to wait 20 minutes. The agent said there's a known bug with parent signatures in Chrome browsers specifically. They reset the signature section in their system and I was able to sign again. The status is now showing as 'processing' instead of 'missing signature.

So glad you got it figured out! This exact type of formatting "error" happens constantly. It's frustrating they can't build a better system that accounts for these minor differences. At least you caught it early before scholarship deadlines!

Typical government inefficiency! Glad you got it sorted out though. This kind of nonsense is why people get so frustrated with the whole financial aid process.

If you need to speak with someone at Federal Student Aid without the wait time hassle, try using Claimyr (claimyr.com). I was getting that same error code and kept getting disconnected after 30+ minute waits. Used their service and got connected to a FAFSA rep in under 5 minutes who explained exactly how to resolve the 2264 code. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The agent I spoke with was able to override the error in my case since I was submitting for early admission deadlines.

UPDATE: I finally got this resolved! Used Claimyr to reach a FAFSA agent who explained that code 2264 was specifically because my dad filed an extension AND reported a different income amount than what was on his previous year's taxes (he's self-employed so it varies). The agent manually noted this on my application and told me to submit the paper tax transcript once available, but said my application can proceed for now with a special note that I'm not trying to commit fraud or anything. My early decision school confirmed they'll accept this explanation with the pending verification. Thanks everyone for your help!!!

File them as separate complaints to make sure each issue gets proper attention. And one more suggestion - the PSLF Waiver that ended in October 2022 had provisions that might have helped your situation, but there's a lesser-known program called the IDR Account Adjustment that's still ongoing. This adjustment is reviewing accounts and may retroactively count some periods of forbearance/deferment toward forgiveness. \n\nThe deadline for consolidation to benefit from this has been extended to April 30, 2024, and you don't need to take any action if your loans are already Direct Loans. This could potentially help with some of your time in default as well.\n\nYou can read more about it here: https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/idr-account-adjustment

Thank you so much! I hadn't heard about this IDR Account Adjustment at all. My loans are already Direct Loans so it sounds like I might automatically benefit from this. I'll read up on it right away.

My cousin was just talking about parent plus loans the other day. Her mom got one but its been a hassle for them cause the money gets sent to the school not to you directly i think? And she said they had to pay some fee upfront which was annoying. Something like 4% which adds up to ALOT of money!!

Thank you all for the great information! I definitely misheard "Parent PLUS" as "College Plus" and was getting so confused. I'll talk to both my parents about this option, but given my dad's credit issues, we might need to look at alternatives. I'm going to schedule an appointment with my financial aid office to discuss all options based on our specific situation. Is there anything specific I should ask them about besides the Parent PLUS loan?