FAFSA SAI calculation seems wrong - can we appeal or get explanation for disappointing aid package?

the new FAFSA with the SAI calculation is different from the old EFC so thats probably why its shocking u. i had the same issue with my sons aid package. they now count more stuff and give less aid overall from what ive seen. the

That's what I was afraid of. Did you end up just accepting it or were you able to do anything about it?

There are definitely ways to better understand and potentially appeal your SAI calculation. First, you should request a detailed breakdown of your SAI calculation from Federal Student Aid directly - it's your right to know exactly how they arrived at that number.\n\nSome common issues that might be affecting your calculation:\n1. Untaxed income that was counted but shouldn't have been\n2. Assets that were reported incorrectly or double-counted\n3. The income year used might have been unusually high for your family\n4. Retirement accounts SHOULDN'T be counted unless you reported distributions incorrectly\n\nFor appeals, you'll need to submit a Professional Judgment Request (sometimes called a Special Circumstances form) through your daughter's school. Each college handles these differently, but most will consider:\n- Job loss or reduction in income since the tax year reported\n- Medical expenses not covered by insurance\n- Support of extended family members\n- Unusual one-time income events that inflated your reported income\n\nI'd suggest gathering all your financial documentation and scheduling a detailed meeting with the financial aid office to go through the calculation line by line.

Thank you so much for this detailed response! This gives me a much clearer path forward. I'm going to call Federal Student Aid tomorrow to request that breakdown. One question - when you mention \

Regarding untaxed income that might be incorrectly counted, here are some common issues:\n\n- Contributions to tax-deferred retirement plans (like 401k or 403b) sometimes get double-counted\n- Child support received may be incorrectly calculated if it's ending soon\n- Veterans non-education benefits sometimes get misreported\n- Tax-exempt interest income can be counted in ways that overstate your actual available funds\n- Roth IRA contributions (which are after-tax) sometimes get incorrectly included\n\nWhen you speak with Federal Student Aid, specifically ask them to explain each component of your SAI calculation and compare it to your actual financial documents.

This is really helpful info! My son is heading to college next year and I'm already stressing about FAFSA. Quick question - do they count home equity in the assets part? We bought our house 20 years ago and it's worth way more now, but that doesn't mean we have actual cash to pay for college!

OK so here's what happened to ME. We had a similar income ($91K) and got hit with a crazy high SAI too. Turns out we accidentally reported our HOUSE VALUE as a liquid asset!!!!! The FAFSA doesn't actually count your primary residence as an asset but the question was confusing and we included it. Called FSA and had to do a correction and our SAI dropped by like $12,000!!!!!\n\nDEFINITELY call and ask for a detailed breakdown. One wrong box checked can completely mess up your calculation.

Oh wow, that's a massive difference! I wonder if we made a similar mistake. We've lived in our house for 15 years and it has appreciated quite a bit. I'll definitely check if that somehow got included. Thank you for sharing your experience!

I've been trying to call Federal Student Aid for WEEKS about our SAI calculation and can never get through - always disconnects after being on hold forever. Has anyone actually managed to talk to a real person there? How????

I had the same problem trying to reach FSA about my daughter's verification issues. After wasting hours on hold, I finally used this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that holds your place in line and calls you back when an agent is available. Totally worth it for me since I was getting nowhere with the regular phone line. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ\n\nIt's especially helpful if you need to talk to an actual FSA agent who can see your specific SAI calculation and explain what's happening with your application. The regular financial aid office at colleges often doesn't have access to the detailed FAFSA calculation.

The new FAFSA formula is definitely causing headaches for many families this year. Some specific things to look at that commonly cause inflated SAI calculations:\n\n1. Multiple students in college is no longer a significant factor in reducing your SAI (this was a major change from previous years)\n\n2. Small business owners often have assets counted that shouldn't be if they employ under 100 people\n\n3. Self-employed people sometimes see inflated income calculations because business expenses aren't properly accounted for\n\n4. Divorced/separated parents sometimes have issues with which parent's information should be included\n\n5. Checking the wrong box about farm assets or investments can dramatically affect calculations\n\nThe Professional Judgment appeal is your best option, but be extremely specific about why your family's situation isn't accurately reflected in the standard formula. Generic appeals rarely succeed - you need documentation and specific circumstances.

My family got hit by #1 on your list!!! My twins are both starting college this fall and we thought having 2 kids in college would HELP our financial aid but the new formula barely gave us any break for that. So frustrating!!

Update - you all have been so helpful! I managed to get through to FSA this morning (took forever) and had them go through our calculation line by line. Turns out we made TWO major mistakes:\n\n1. We accidentally included the value of our primary home ($310,000) as an investment asset\n2. My husband's 401k contributions were somehow double-counted as both income and assets\n\nThe agent walked me through filing a correction online, and she estimated our SAI should drop by about $14,000 once processed! I'm also going to submit that Professional Judgment appeal to my daughter's school since my income actually decreased last year compared to the tax year they used.\n\nThank you all so much for your guidance - I would never have known what to look for without your help!

That's fantastic news! Those are exactly the kind of issues that commonly trip families up. Once your corrected SAI is processed, make sure to contact the financial aid office at your daughter's school right away so they can recalculate her aid package. They won't automatically do this in most cases - you'll need to specifically request a revised award letter based on the corrected SAI.\n\nAnd definitely proceed with that Professional Judgment appeal for the income decrease. Make sure to provide clear documentation showing the before/after income change. Best of luck to you and your daughter!

congrats!!! thats such a huge difference. srsly the new FAFSA is so confusing compared to the old one. wish they'd make it more user friendly. my son had to take out extra loans cause we couldn't figure all this stuff out in time for his deadline :

If your son is still within the academic year, it's not too late to submit corrections! FAFSA corrections can be processed throughout the academic year, and while schools won't automatically revise aid packages, many will adjust if you specifically request it after a significant SAI change. Worth looking into if those mistakes might have affected your calculation too.

Hi - me again with the house question. So if I'm understanding right, primary residence value is NOT supposed to be included at all in FAFSA? What about college savings accounts (529 plans)? Does anyone know if those count against you? We've been saving since our kids were babies and it would be really unfair if that reduced their aid!

You're correct that your primary residence value is NOT counted as an asset on the FAFSA. As for 529 plans, they ARE counted as parental assets if the parent is the account owner (which is most common). However, parental assets are assessed at a maximum rate of only 5.64%, so $10,000 in a 529 would only increase your SAI by about $564 at most.\n\nThink of it this way: it's still much better to have saved the money than not, as only a small percentage counts against you in the formula. If the 529 is owned by a grandparent or other relative, the treatment is different - but that changed with the new FAFSA too, so get current advice on that situation.

Just tried that Claimyr service someone mentioned above to reach FSA about my own calculation issues. Actually got a human on the phone this morning who helped sort out a dependency override question that's been hanging for weeks. Thought I'd report back that it worked for me too.

The whole system is SO BROKEN that we need special services just to talk to someone about our kids education funding!!! Why can't they just hire enough people to answer the phones????? My nephew had to skip his first semester because his verification was stuck in limbo for 3 months with no one to help!!

This thread has been incredibly helpful! As someone new to the FAFSA process, I had no idea how many ways things could go wrong with the SAI calculation. My daughter is a junior in high school, so we're starting to think about all this for next year. A few questions for the group based on what I've read here: 1. Is there a good resource or checklist somewhere for avoiding these common mistakes when filling out the FAFSA for the first time? 2. Should we be keeping detailed records of our financial situation throughout her senior year in case we need to do a Professional Judgment appeal? 3. Are there any other "gotcha" items beyond the house value and retirement account issues that have been mentioned? Really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences - it's clear this process is way more complicated than it should be, but at least we can learn from each other's mistakes!

This entire thread has been eye-opening! I'm dealing with a similar situation - our SAI came back much higher than expected for our income level. Reading through everyone's experiences, I'm realizing we probably made some of the same mistakes mentioned here. I wanted to add one thing that might help others: when I called my daughter's college financial aid office, they mentioned that they keep a "common FAFSA errors" document that they can email to families. It's not advertised anywhere, but apparently many schools have these internal resources. Might be worth asking your specific school if they have something similar. Also, for anyone still struggling to reach Federal Student Aid by phone - I found that calling right when they open (8am EST) gave me much better luck than calling later in the day. Still took about 45 minutes on hold, but at least I got through. Going to follow Miguel's example and request that detailed SAI breakdown tomorrow. Fingers crossed we can get some of these issues sorted out before the fall semester!

As a newcomer to this community, I just wanted to say how incredibly valuable this thread has been! I'm currently dealing with my own FAFSA nightmare - our SAI came back at nearly $28,000 for a family income of $92,000, which seems completely unrealistic. Reading through all of your experiences has given me so much hope that this might be fixable. I'm definitely going to check if we accidentally included our home value (bought our house 12 years ago and it's appreciated significantly) and look into whether my husband's retirement contributions were double-counted. One question for the group: has anyone dealt with issues related to reporting rental property income? We have a small rental property that barely breaks even after expenses, but I'm wondering if the FAFSA is counting the full rental income without properly accounting for the mortgage, taxes, and maintenance costs we pay on it. Thank you all for sharing your stories and creating such a supportive space to navigate this confusing process!

Wow, this thread is exactly what I needed to find! I'm a first-time FAFSA parent and completely overwhelmed by the whole process. My son is starting college this fall and our SAI came back at $19,500 on a household income of $78,000 - which honestly feels impossible for us to manage. After reading through everyone's experiences here, I'm realizing we probably made some of these same mistakes. I'm pretty sure we might have incorrectly reported something because that number just doesn't add up with our actual financial situation. I'm going to follow the advice here and call Federal Student Aid tomorrow morning at 8am to request a detailed breakdown of our calculation. Also planning to ask our son's college about that "common FAFSA errors" document that was mentioned - such a great tip! One quick question for the group: if we do find errors and need to submit corrections, how long does it typically take for schools to recalculate financial aid packages? We're getting nervous about accepting/declining aid offers before the May 1st deadline. Thank you all for sharing your experiences and creating such a helpful resource. It's comforting to know we're not alone in finding this process confusing and that there might be light at the end of the tunnel!