FAFSA edit issue: Can't find scholarship/grants income question when correcting

They completely restructured where some questions appear in the simplified FAFSA. That particular question about scholarships/grants as income might be hiding under the expanded financial information section. Have you clicked on all the "Show more" toggles? Sometimes they hide the less common questions.

That question was actually removed in the new 2025-2026 FAFSA simplification! The Department of Education eliminated several questions, including that one about reporting scholarships/grants as income. The new system is designed to pull tax information directly from the IRS Data Retrieval Tool, which already accounts for reported scholarship income on tax returns. If you reported scholarships as income on your taxes, the system already has that information through the IRS data connection.

had the EXACT same panic moment last week lol. the new fafsa is so different from the old 1!!! my daughter got a small scholarship last yr and i was lookng everywhere 2 report it. ended up just submitting without it since i couldnt find where to put it

Just as a heads-up - if the scholarship was used for anything beyond tuition, fees, books, and required supplies (like room and board), then it SHOULD have been reported as income on your taxes. The FAFSA now just pulls that data directly rather than asking you to report it twice. If you didn't report taxable scholarship portions on your taxes, that could potentially be an issue that needs correction with the IRS, not FAFSA.

I've been having the WORST time trying to contact Federal Student Aid about a similar issue. Called 18 times over 3 days and either got disconnected or was on hold forever. Finally used this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that holds your place in line and calls you back when an agent is available. Saved me hours of hold time! They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Anyway, the agent confirmed what others here said - that question was removed in the simplified FAFSA, and the system now pulls the relevant info directly from your tax return via the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.

Just to add some clarity on the scholarship reporting changes: The 2025-2026 FAFSA eliminated approximately 26 questions from the previous version, including several questions about unreported income sources. The Department of Education determined that some questions were creating unnecessary complexity without significantly impacting the SAI calculation. For scholarships specifically: 1. Taxable scholarships already appear on your 1040 form, which the IRS Data Retrieval Tool captures 2. Non-taxable scholarships generally don't need to be manually reported anymore 3. The system now focuses primarily on Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) data from tax returns This change was specifically designed to reduce confusion and duplicate reporting. So you're all good!

I just remebered - there is ONE exception to this rule. If your daughter received scholarships in 2023 that WEREN'T reported on your 2023 taxes (which is what the 2025-2026 FAFSA uses), AND those scholarships were technically taxable, you might need to make a correction. But thats a pretty specific situation and doesn't sound like it applies to you based on your reply to that other comment.

the whole fafsa system is such garbage this year!!! they remove questions without telling anyone, the website crashes constantly, and when you finally submit everything they take FOREVER to calculate your SAI. i submitted in JANUARY and still don't have a final SAI number. how are we supposed to make college decisions like this???

Just wanted to update and thank everyone for the helpful responses! I contacted my daughter's financial aid office directly and they confirmed that the scholarship question was indeed removed from the new FAFSA. They also said that since her scholarship was non-taxable and paid directly to the school, there's nothing additional we need to report. Such a relief! They mentioned they're getting tons of calls about "missing questions" from people familiar with the old FAFSA format.