FAFSA SAI disappeared - says 'student started correction' but my son didn't do anything?

omg yes this EXACT thing happened to my son last week!!! we freaked out because his university deadline for confirming aid is in 3 days. we called the school and they said theyve been seeing this with lots of students. apparently its some kind of system update or audit the dept of education is doing? the financial aid office told us not to worry but i still do lol

This is a known issue affecting many 2025-2026 FAFSA applications right now. The Department of Education is running system updates that sometimes trigger the "correction initiated" status even when no corrections were made by the student. In most cases, your SAI should return to your account within 7-10 business days. The good news is that schools have been notified about this issue and most are being flexible with financial aid deadlines. If it doesn't resolve within two weeks, I'd recommend these steps: 1. Have your daughter log in (not you as a parent) to check if there are any actual corrections pending 2. Contact her school's financial aid office and ask if they can use the previously processed SAI while waiting for the system to update 3. Request a case number from Federal Student Aid if you need to follow up

Dont panic THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME!!! The fafsa system is garbage and glitches constantly. my daughters app did this 3 times between january and may. each time it fixed itself after about a week. just screenshot everything so you have proof of your original numbers in case they try to change anything!!!

i work at a college financial aid office and we're dealing with this constantly right now. it's a system update that's flagging applications for various reasons. most return to normal in 7-10 days. your daughter should log in herself and check if there's an actual correction form that's accessible. if not, it's definitely the glitch. we've been telling students to wait it out unless they have an immediate disbursement needed.

I had this same issue and spent THREE DAYS trying to get through to someone at Federal Student Aid. Kept getting disconnected or waiting for hours. Finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) which got me connected to an agent in about 20 minutes. They confirmed it was a system issue on their end and made a note in my son's file for his school. You can see how it works in their demo video: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The agent told me they're seeing hundreds of these cases right now and are working on a fix. Having a case number from them helped when talking to my son's university.

my nephew had this happen and his SAI went up by $2000 after the "correction" even though he didnt change anything!! make sure u double check all numbers when it comes back!!

Ok, let me explain what's actually happening from a technical perspective. The Department of Education is running database validation checks on all processed FAFSA applications to ensure consistency before the fall disbursement cycle. This automatically puts applications into a temporary "correction" status while the validation runs. The key points to understand: 1. This is NOT a correction initiated by your daughter 2. This will NOT change your SAI unless they identify an actual discrepancy in the data 3. The process typically completes in 7-10 business days 4. Your original SAI is still in the system and visible to schools 5. Most institutions are aware of this issue If the validation finds no issues, your original SAI returns. If they find inconsistencies (often related to tax data), you may receive a request for verification or see an adjusted SAI.

update: my sons SAI came back today (5 days after disappearing) and its exactly the same as before! so maybe dont worry too much :