FAFSA application stuck in limbo since February - need urgent help before tuition deadline

omg same boat!! submitted in january and NOTHING. no confirmation email, no updates on studentaid.gov, nada. called like 50 times and always get disconnected after 2 hrs on hold. school keeps sending us threatening emails about dropping my sons classes if we dont pay soon. this is ridiculous!!

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Unfortunately, FSA has been experiencing massive delays this year due to the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation. Here are a few things that might help: 1. Check your Student Aid Index (SAI) status on studentaid.gov - if you can see any processing status, that means they at least received your application 2. Ask your school's financial aid office to specifically check the ISIR system to see if your daughter's FAFSA is showing as received but not processed 3. Request an additional extension from the school with documentation of your submission attempts (screenshots of submission confirmations, certified mail receipts, etc.) 4. Contact your congressional representative's office - they have staff dedicated to helping constituents with federal agencies and can often get answers when you can't The bottleneck is definitely on the federal side right now, not with your school. They're likely just as frustrated as you are.

Been there, done that, got the anxiety medication to prove it! The FSA phone line is COMPLETELY USELESS this year. After 7 attempts and probably 14 total hours on hold, I finally got through using Claimyr (claimyr.com). It's a service that waits on hold with FSA for you and then calls you when an agent is about to pick up. I was skeptical but desperate - worked perfectly and I finally got confirmation that they had our application but it was stuck in verification. They were able to push it through while I was on the phone. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Saved me from having to take out private loans for my son's first semester. Worth every penny for the stress relief alone.

I work at a university financial aid office (different from yours obviously), and this year has been an absolute nightmare with FAFSA. The Department of Education rolled out the new simplified FAFSA without adequate testing, and it's causing unprecedented delays. Here's what I recommend from someone on the inside: 1. Make sure you have your SAI confirmation email - if you don't have one, your FAFSA likely didn't fully submit 2. Ask your school about emergency institutional funding or a payment plan that extends beyond this month - many schools have created emergency protocols specifically for FAFSA delays 3. Document EVERYTHING - dates, times of calls, confirmation numbers, names of agents 4. Request a "special circumstances review" from your financial aid office - this is different from a regular appeal and specifically addresses processing issues 5. If it comes down to it, a short-term private loan that you can pay off as soon as federal aid comes through might be your only option, but make sure there's no prepayment penalty One last thing - check if your FAFSA is stuck in the "verification" queue. Many applications are getting flagged for verification this year due to system errors, not because of any issues with your information.

WHY is nobody talking about how COMPLETELY BROKEN the new FAFSA system is?!? This is my third kid going to college and I've NEVER had these problems before. The Department of Education should be ashamed of themselves for rolling out this disaster and then just leaving families to suffer. They've had MONTHS to fix these problems and nothing has improved. Now thousands of students across the country are at risk of not being able to attend school because some government bureaucrats couldn't build a functioning website. Absolutely infuriating.

Quick update on what finally worked for me: After getting through to FSA (using that Claimyr service I mentioned), I discovered our FAFSA was stuck because of an error with the parent contribution section. Even though we filled everything out correctly, their system had some glitch with how our W-2 info transferred. The agent manually overrode something in their system, and our SAI showed up in the school's system literally THE NEXT DAY. Federal loans were processed within a week after that. If you can just get someone on the phone who knows what they're doing, they can often fix these issues immediately. Hang in there - I know how stressful this is!