Birthday field keeps resetting on FAFSA form - finally found a fix after months of frustration!
SUCCESS STORY TIME, PEOPLE!! After nearly 4 months of pure FAFSA hell, we FINALLY got my son's application submitted! The stupid form kept showing my birthday wrong every time we tried to sign and submit, even though we corrected it multiple times. The system would accept the change then magically revert back to the wrong date at the signature page! 😡 We tried EVERYTHING - different browsers, clearing cache, different computers, my phone, his phone, his laptop, MY laptop... I was seriously about to lose my mind. The FAFSA website would kick us out with that annoying "Unable to Complete This Action" message EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Finally yesterday my husband somehow got through to an actual human being at FSA (miracle!!) who walked us through it step by step. Turns out there was some weird glitch with my birthday field that kept resetting during the final submission step. The agent could see it happening on their end and helped us fix it properly so it would stop reverting. Application SUBMITTED and we already got the confirmation email!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Seriously though - why can't FAFSA just tell you what's wrong instead of those vague error messages? It would have saved us literal months of stress. Anyway, grateful for everyone here who offered advice while we battled this ridiculous system!
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Oliver Becker
Congrats! It's always something silly like that, isn't it? We spent weeks trying to figure out why our FAFSA kept rejecting only to discover my husband's SSN had a typo in it that wasn't being flagged anywhere obvious. The system just kept saying "error" with no explanation. So frustrating!
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Amina Bah
•Exactly! The worst part is feeling like you're going crazy because you KNOW you're entering everything correctly. My son was getting so anxious about missing deadlines. Would have taken 5 minutes to fix if they just told us what was wrong!
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CosmicCowboy
This is EXACTLY what happened to us!!! My daughter's FAFSA had an issue with my birthday too, but in our case it kept changing the YEAR not the day. We didn't figure it out for weeks because the error messages were completely useless. I swear FAFSA is deliberately designed to make parents lose their minds. How did your husband manage to get through to an actual person? We've been trying for days with no luck.
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Amina Bah
•It took him calling at exactly 8:01am when they opened. He said he tried 3 days in a row at that time and finally got through on the third day. Even then he was on hold for almost an hour before speaking to someone!
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Natasha Orlova
I remember when FAFSA was just a paper form you mailed in lol. Now it's all fancy technology that somehow works worse than paper did. At least with paper, you could SEE what you wrote down! Glad you got it figured out finally.
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Javier Cruz
•The paper days weren't perfect either - I once had a FAFSA application delayed by 6 weeks because it got lost in transit. Each system has its own problems, but I agree these technical glitches with no clear error messages are particularly frustrating.
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Emma Thompson
For anyone struggling to get through to an FSA agent about verification or submission issues, I'd recommend trying Claimyr. It basically holds your place in the phone queue and calls you when an agent is available. Saved me hours of hold time when dealing with my own FAFSA nightmare last month. Their site is claimyr.com and they have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The birthday field issue you experienced is actually pretty common with the new FAFSA rollout. It's related to how the system caches data between sections. For future reference, clearing browser data AND restarting the browser completely (not just closing the tab) can sometimes prevent these types of glitches.
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Oliver Becker
•Is that service legit? I'm always suspicious of third-party services for government stuff.
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Emma Thompson
•Yes, it's legitimate. They don't access your FAFSA information - they just manage the phone connection. It's basically like having someone else wait on hold for you. I was skeptical too until my financial aid advisor at school recommended it.
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Malik Jackson
I'm still stuck in FAFSA limbo with my twins' applications. One got processed in 3 days, the other has been "processing" for 5 weeks with no explanation. Every time I call FSA, I get disconnected after 40+ minutes on hold. The inconsistency is maddening! And don't even get me started on the new "simplified" form that somehow takes LONGER to complete than the old one. 😑 Did your confirmation email include the SAI score or just say it was received?
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Amina Bah
•Just received for now. The email said we'll get the SAI calculation in 3-5 business days. Fingers crossed nothing else goes wrong!
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Isabella Costa
omg thats great news!! been following ur story and was worried u wouldn't get it done in time. my brother had similar issues but with his dad's ssn section, kept saying error but not what the error WAS. financial aid office at his school finally helped figure it out. why is this so hard????
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Amina Bah
•Thanks! Yeah, the lack of specific error messages is my biggest complaint. Just tell us what's wrong so we can fix it! Hope your brother got everything sorted out too.
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Javier Cruz
The birthday field issue is actually a known bug in the current FAFSA system that the Department of Education is working to fix. It typically happens when a parent's profile was created before the October 2023 FAFSA simplification changes were implemented. For anyone else experiencing this issue, here's the workaround: 1. Log out completely from studentaid.gov 2. Clear your browser cache and cookies 3. Log back in, but use the "Edit FAFSA" option rather than continuing a saved form 4. Go directly to the personal information section and update the birthday 5. Complete the remaining sections without closing the browser 6. At the sign and submit page, verify the birthday is correct before proceeding The system occasionally displays the correct information on screen but sends incorrect cached data during submission. When calling the FSA helpline, ask specifically for a "data field verification check" on your parent information section.
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Malik Jackson
•This is really helpful info! Do you know if there's any official documentation about these known bugs? I'd like to share it with my son's financial aid office because they keep telling us "just try again" without any real solutions.
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Javier Cruz
•There isn't much public documentation, unfortunately. The Federal Student Aid office has acknowledged some "technical challenges" in their press releases, but they haven't published a comprehensive list of known issues. Most of what I'm sharing comes from working in a university financial aid office and our direct communications with FSA. If your aid office is giving unhelpful advice, I'd recommend asking to speak with their FAFSA specialist or systems coordinator specifically.
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Caden Turner
Wow, what a relief that must be! I'm dealing with a similar nightmare right now - my daughter's FAFSA has been stuck in "review" status for 6 weeks and every time we try to make any updates, it kicks us back to the beginning. The birthday field issue you described sounds exactly like what we experienced with her SSN - it would show correctly on every page but then revert to some random number at submission. We've tried everything short of sacrificing a goat to the FAFSA gods! 😅 Going to try calling at 8:01am like your husband did. Fingers crossed we can get through to someone who actually knows what they're doing. Thanks for sharing your success story - it gives me hope that there's light at the end of this bureaucratic tunnel!
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