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Did your daughter get accepted to both schools? Sometimes colleges won't finalize aid packages for students who are on waitlists or whose admission status isn't fully resolved.
One important note - many private colleges will match or improve their offers if you show them the financial aid package from your state school. Once you get the state university's full offer, you can use that as leverage with the private college. Just be sure to get everything in writing and follow up persistently. Also, don't forget to check if your student qualifies for any departmental scholarships from their intended major. Sometimes these aren't automatically included in the initial aid package and require separate applications.
That's excellent advice! Our state university already gave us their complete package, which includes some merit scholarships. I'll definitely mention that when I call the private college on Monday. And I'll ask about departmental scholarships too - she's planning to major in biology, so maybe there are science department funds.
So like is this gonna affect our SAI calculations? my daughter needs to get all her scholarships or we are screwed for paying for college. the mich state grant is a big part of our plan.
The technical issues shouldn't affect your actual SAI calculation or Michigan state grant eligibility. The problems are with the submission process, not the calculation engine. Once your application is successfully processed, your data will be evaluated correctly. If you're concerned about timing, contact your daughter's preferred schools directly and explain the situation - most Michigan institutions are making allowances for these known technical issues.
UPDATE: Success! Our counselor was able to help us complete the application using their school portal access. Apparently, they can submit directly through a different system that bypasses some of the glitches. She mentioned they've helped about 35 families with the same issue just this week! For anyone else stuck in Michigan FAFSA limbo - definitely contact your school counselor. They were super helpful and knew exactly which workarounds to use. Our application is finally processing, and she said we should see our SAI calculation within 3-5 business days. Such a relief!
Have you verified both you and your daughter have valid FSA IDs that are properly linked to the application? This was the issue with my son's application. Even though we both had FSA IDs and thought they were connected to the application, there was some kind of verification problem that prevented the final submission. When we finally got through to someone at FSA, they explained that both FSA IDs needed to be fully verified through the email confirmation process AND linked to the specific application. In our case, I had created a new FSA ID (forgot my old one) but the system was still trying to use my old one for verification purposes. I would recommend checking both FSA ID accounts separately to confirm verification status before trying anything else. The sign and submit button won't appear if either account has verification issues.
Just following up to see if any of these suggestions helped resolve your issue? The deadline for many schools' priority financial aid is approaching, so I wanted to check if you were able to make progress.
Thanks for checking back! I tried several of the suggestions here. What finally worked was going through the entire application again section by section and discovering that although the parent income info showed a green checkmark, there was a specific question about business income that hadn't saved properly. After fixing that and waiting about 12 hours, the sign and submit button finally appeared! We submitted yesterday and got confirmation. Such a relief!
my daughter's financial aid advisor told us the whole system is still buggy. even if everything looks fine now, print out confirmation pages of EVERYTHING and keep checking the status every couple weeks. my niece thought her fafsa was all done but then 2 months later got an email saying there was a problem with the parent section that needed fixing.
To provide some additional clarity: Under the FAFSA Simplification Act, the 2025-2026 application simplifies the parent contribution process for married couples filing jointly. When spouses file taxes jointly, the primary financial information is collected from whichever parent was entered first in the application. The system generates an accurate Student Aid Index (SAI) calculation using the household's joint tax information without requiring both parents to individually submit information. Your daughter's application is processing correctly based on what you've described.
Thank you for the detailed explanation! That makes perfect sense now. We've confirmed her application is complete and shows a submission confirmation number. The SAI calculation should be based on our joint income then, which is exactly what we wanted. I really appreciate everyone's help in figuring this out!
Arjun Kurti
dont schools look at CSS profile more than fafsa anyway? my kids college said they use CSS for deciding their own aid.
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Raúl Mora
•This depends entirely on the school. Many public universities use only the FAFSA, while many private colleges use both FAFSA and CSS Profile. Federal aid (Pell Grants, direct loans, work-study) is exclusively determined by FAFSA, while institutional aid may use either or both forms. If your son is applying to schools that require the CSS Profile, you should check if you made the same error there and correct it immediately.
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Ellie Simpson
UPDATE: I finally got through to someone at Federal Student Aid! The agent confirmed this is a known issue with the new FAFSA. Apparently some sections lock after initial processing. She submitted a correction request on her end and said it should update within 7-10 business days, and that I should also notify schools of the error. Thank you all for your help and suggestions!
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Lincoln Ramiro
•Great news! Did you end up using that Claimyr service someone mentioned or did you just keep trying the regular number?
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Ellie Simpson
•I used Claimyr after my 4th attempt calling directly ended with another disconnection. It worked exactly as described - got connected to a real person in about 15 minutes instead of waiting for hours or getting disconnected.
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