FAFSA Parent Contributor Confusion - Created My Own Account After No Invitation Email

u need to asj ur daughter to resend the invitation to the right email adress...or maybe she typoed it when entering ur email? my son did that and thats why i never got anything. have her log in and check what email she put for u

Creating your own FSA ID wasn't necessarily bad advice, but it won't help you contribute to your daughter's application until she sends an invitation that successfully reaches you. A few things to try: 1. Have your daughter log in to her studentaid.gov account and check the exact email address she used for you 2. Have her cancel the pending invitation and send a new one 3. Try using a different email address altogether for the new invitation 4. Check with your email provider - some security settings block emails from government domains As for deleting your FSA ID - I wouldn't recommend it. You'll need your own FSA ID to sign the FAFSA anyway as a contributor, so that part was actually correct advice. The problem is just connecting it to your daughter's application, which requires a successful invitation process.

This happened to ME TOO!! The emails never came through no matter what we did. My son's application was just sitting there for WEEKS because I couldn't contribute my information. We finally gave up trying to fix it ourselves and called Federal Student Aid.

Don't worry too much about creating that FSA ID - you didn't mess anything up. I work in a college financial aid office and we see this issue ALL THE TIME with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. There's a technical issue with the invitation system that the Department of Education is supposedly working on. Your best options are: 1. Have your daughter call Federal Student Aid at 1-800-433-3243 and explain that her parent invitation emails aren't being delivered. They can sometimes force the invitation through or provide a special link. 2. If you can't get through by phone, your daughter can try using the live chat feature on studentaid.gov (though this isn't always available). 3. Some schools actually have a workaround where the parent and student can come to the financial aid office together and complete the parent portion in person with verification of identity. The most important thing is not to miss that school priority deadline. If all else fails, make sure your daughter submits the application with whatever information she can provide, then follow up with the school's financial aid office to explain the situation.

As others have mentioned, creating your FSA ID was actually a necessary step, so don't worry about that part. I'm dealing with a similar issue with my parent contributor section for my son's FAFSA. One thing nobody has mentioned is checking if your daughter selected the correct relationship type when sending the invitation. If she accidentally selected "Legal Guardian" instead of "Parent," the system handles the invitation differently. Also, make sure she completed the "Who's your parent?" section correctly before sending the invitation. From my experience, the invitation emails can sometimes take up to 24 hours to arrive, but not 5+ days. Something is definitely wrong with the delivery.

I'm having the EXACT same problem!! My son swears he sent me an invitation TWO WEEKS ago and I never got anything. I ended up creating my own account too and got the same error message. I'm so frustrated with this new FAFSA system - it's been nothing but problems since they rolled it out. Does anyone know if there's a way to just bypass the invitation system altogether? Like can my son just give me his login and I fill out my part? (I know that's probably against the rules but at this point I'm desperate).

i think the whole FAFSA system is DELIBERATELY COMPLICATED to discourage people from getting financial aid!!! my daughter and i spent HOURS trying to connect our accounts last month. the fact that so many people are having the same problem proves its not a glitch - its by design! we ended up having to go to her college financial aid office in person and they helped us. apparently they can do some kind of override. but the whole system is ridiculous and needs to be completely overhauled.

UPDATE: We figured it out! After trying several suggestions here, we discovered the problem. My daughter had entered my email correctly, but when she originally set up her FSA ID account, she had listed me with a slightly different name than what I used when creating my own account (she put "Robert" while my account uses "Bob"). When we called FSA using the Claimyr service someone recommended (which worked great - got a callback in about 30 minutes), the agent explained that the system was trying to match both the email AND name exactly. The agent canceled the pending invitation, my daughter sent a new one with my name exactly as it appears on my FSA ID, and I finally received the email within minutes! For anyone else having this issue, make sure the parent's name matches EXACTLY on both sides.

This is such valuable information - thank you for sharing the solution! I'm a newcomer here dealing with the same frustrating issue. My son sent me an invitation over a week ago and I never received it. After reading through all these responses, I'm realizing there could be multiple issues at play. I'm going to check: 1. Whether he entered my name exactly as it appears on my FSA ID (like Hazel discovered was the problem) 2. If he selected the correct relationship type (parent vs legal guardian as Nasira mentioned) 3. Try the Claimyr callback service if we can't get through to FSA directly It's honestly ridiculous that such a critical system has so many technical glitches, but at least this community is helping each other figure out workarounds. Really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences and solutions!