Can't see my daughter's student loans on FAFSA website after 3 months - where are they?

are u sure u logged into studentaid.gov and not ur schools portal? they're different systems. also loans sometimes take like 4-5 weeks after disbursement to show up in the federal system imo

You need to check with your daughter if the loans were actually disbursed yet. Just because they were awarded doesn't mean they're active. Many schools disburse loans on a semester-by-semester basis, not all at once at the beginning of the year. The "My Aid" section on studentaid.gov only shows active loans that have been disbursed to the school. Ask your daughter to check her student account to see if the loans have actually been paid out to the school yet.

Wait I'm confused. Are you sure you should be using YOUR FSA ID? If these are your DAUGHTER'S student loans, shouldn't you be using HER account? Unless these are Parent PLUS loans in your name, you might be looking in the wrong account entirely. Students loans typically belong to the student, not the parent.

The whole system is SUCH A MESS!!! I've been dealing with this exact issue for 6 months now. My daughter's loans finally showed up, but not until after they'd already added $433 in interest that we could have been paying all along if they'd just TOLD US WHERE TO FIND THE DAMN THINGS!! Why does the Dept of Education make everything so complicated?? It's like they WANT us to pay more interest!!

my kid graduated 2 yrs ago and i still have trouble with the stupid website sometimes lol. i just mail checks directly to the loan servicer now instead of dealing with all the online stuff

To address your main question directly: 1. You cannot see your daughter's loans with your FSA ID (unless they're Parent PLUS loans) 2. Your daughter needs to log in with her own FSA ID to see her loans 3. Once loans are disbursed, they typically take 30-90 days to appear in the federal system 4. Interest on unsubsidized loans starts accruing from the date of first disbursement 5. To make payments, you'll ultimately need to go through her loan servicer, not studentaid.gov I'd recommend having your daughter log in, checking what servicer her loans are assigned to, and then setting up an account with that servicer where she can add you as an authorized payer.

If you're still having trouble reaching someone at Federal Student Aid to help sort this out, I'd recommend using Claimyr (claimyr.com). They helped me get through to a real person at FSA when I had a similar issue with my son's loans not showing up. They basically hold your place in the phone queue so you don't have to wait on hold forever. They have a video that shows how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ. Once I got through to a real agent, they were able to confirm exactly when the loans would appear in the system and which servicer they'd be assigned to.

just went thru this with my twins!! once we figured out we needed to use THEIR accounts not mine everything started making sense. but yeah the interest does start right away on unsubsidized so dont wait for the website to update!!

One important point that hasn't been mentioned yet: If these are federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans for the 2025-2026 academic year, the current interest rate is 6.8%. At that rate, a $5,500 loan accrues about $1.02 in interest per day or roughly $31 per month. Making interest-only payments during school is an excellent strategy to prevent capitalization (when unpaid interest gets added to the principal) after the grace period ends. Just make sure your daughter is aware that you're doing this for her benefit - it's a wonderful gift you're giving her by reducing her long-term debt burden!

Just wanted to add one more tip that helped us - if your daughter's school uses quarters instead of semesters, they often disburse loans at the beginning of each quarter rather than all at once. So even if the fall quarter loan was disbursed back in September, the winter quarter portion might not have been disbursed yet (depending on when winter quarter started). This could explain why you're not seeing the full $5,500 amount. Also, once you do get access to her loan servicer account, you can set up autopay for the interest payments which usually gives you a small interest rate reduction (like 0.25%). Every bit helps when you're trying to minimize the long-term cost!