Confusing FAFSA question from last year - is it still on 2025-2026 form?

which question was it exactly? there were like a bunch of confusing ones lol

I know exactly which question you're talking about. It's the one asking about "the student's investments, including real estate (not including the home you live in), trust funds, money market funds, mutual funds, certificates of deposit, stocks, bonds, etc." Then in a different section they ask about 529 plans and education savings accounts. The good news is that the 2025-2026 FAFSA still has this question but they've improved the wording. It now explicitly states that 529 plans should ONLY be reported in the education savings section, not counted with other investments. They added examples and clearer instructions directly on the form.

My son had the exact same problem!!! We put his 529 plan in both sections and ended up with a SAI that was like $5000 higher than it should have been. When we realized what happened, we tried to submit a correction but by then all the institutional grants had been awarded. Still makes me mad thinking about it!!!

For those who had this issue last year, you can actually request a professional judgment review from your financial aid office. Bring documentation showing the correct values and explain that the form's confusing wording led to double-counting. Many schools will adjust your SAI calculation if you can prove there was an error in reporting. And yes, for the 2025-2026 FAFSA, they definitely improved several confusing questions, including the investment one. The assets section now has much clearer instructions about what belongs where, especially for education savings accounts and 529 plans.

The whole FAFSA system is DESIGNED to be confusing!!! They deliberately make these questions tricky so fewer people get aid. I've filled out 7 FAFSAs for my 3 kids and EVERY SINGLE YEAR there's some "new improved" form that's supposedly clearer but actually just moves the confusing parts around. Don't get your hopes up about this year's form being any better!

One more tip - if you're still concerned about getting the questions right, you can actually schedule a 1-on-1 appointment with a FAFSA advisor from Federal Student Aid. They'll walk through the specific questions you're unsure about. The problem is that it can take forever to reach someone by phone. After being stuck on hold for hours myself last year, I found a service called Claimyr that got me through to a FAFSA agent in about 10 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ and their website is claimyr.com. It was seriously helpful when I needed specific answers about reporting assets correctly.

Another thing to watch out for on the new FAFSA is the household size question. My neighbor works in financial aid and she said that's the second most common mistake after the investment/savings confusion. Make sure you're counting ONLY people who get more than 50% of their financial support from you.

I went through the beta version of the 2025-2026 FAFSA last month (I'm a college counselor), and I can confirm they've significantly improved the wording around investments and assets. The question about student investments now explicitly says "DO NOT include education savings accounts or 529 plans in this section" right in the question text itself. There's also a separate question specifically for education savings accounts with much clearer instructions. They've also added hover-over help text that provides examples and clarification for many of the confusing questions from previous years. Overall, it's a definite improvement, though still not perfect.

my cousin said the new fasfa is actualy worse than last year bc now u need to make contributor profiles for parents which is a whole extra step

As someone who's been through this process multiple times, I can relate to the confusion! The investment/asset questions were definitely problematic on previous forms. What really helped me was printing out the FAFSA and going through it section by section with my tax documents before actually filling it out online. That way I could see exactly what they were asking for and avoid double-counting anything. Also, keep screenshots of your completed sections - it makes it so much easier if you need to reference what you entered later or if there are any issues during verification.

I'm a first-time FAFSA filer and this thread has been incredibly helpful! My biggest takeaway is to be super careful about not double-counting the 529 plan in both the investments section and the education savings section. It sounds like this was a major issue on previous forms but they've improved the wording for 2025-2026. I'm also going to try the approach of printing out the form first to review with my documents - that seems like it would help avoid a lot of confusion. Does anyone know when the 2025-2026 form officially opens? I want to make sure I'm ready to go as soon as it's available.