FAFSA glitch resets parent section when spouse's SSN disappears after signature correction

yep this is happening 2 everyone i know! my son got the same error last week and his dad's ssn vanished. think its a bug in the new system…we ended up just starting over from scrach which sucked but at least it worked

This is a known issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA that happens when any student makes a signature correction after a parent section is completed. The system has a bug that disconnects contributor information. There are actually two potential fixes: 1. Have your daughter log in and manually re-invite you as a contributor (this sometimes refreshes the connection) 2. If that doesn't work, try using a completely different browser (not just incognito) to access the parent portal - Chrome tends to have fewer issues than Safari DON'T start over completely yet, as this will likely cause more delays. The system usually preserves most of your entered data even when showing 'draft' status.

I actually found a solution for this exact problem! Here's what worked for me two weeks ago with my son's FAFSA: 1. Have your student log into their account 2. Go to the contributor section 3. Have them retype your email address (even though it's already there) which forces a reset 4. This will generate a new invitation to you 5. When you accept the new invite, most of your previously entered information should still be there 6. Re-enter anything that's missing, and magically your spouse's SSN should reappear 7. Complete and sign again This worked perfectly for us and saved us from starting over. The new system is so buggy!

THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME!!!! I spent literally 6 hours trying to fix it and nothing worked. Called FSA 3 times and got hung up on every time. This new FAFSA is complete garbage. Whoever designed it should be fired. In the old system this NEVER would have happened.

I ran into the same problem and found that using Claimyr helped me actually reach someone at Federal Student Aid who fixed the issue on their end. Check out claimyr.com - they have a service that gets you through to a live agent instead of waiting on hold forever. There's a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The agent I spoke with explained that this is a known bug, and they had to do something on their end to unlock the glitched contributor section. Saved us from having to start over completely.

After dealing with 3 different SSN glitches across multiple FAFSAs I'm ready to write my thesis on what works and what doesn't lol. Want to share my experience in case it helps anyone: The re-invite method mentioned above worked for 2 of mine but not for my youngest. For his, we had to: 1. Clear ALL browser cache and cookies completely 2. Disable any password managers or autofill features 3. Use private/incognito browsing 4. Log in directly to studentaid.gov (not through any school portal) 5. Sometimes the system needs 24-48 hours to reset on its own The system seems to get confused when multiple dependencies are connected to one parent contributor. Each SSN issue had slightly different causes.

UPDATE: IT WORKED!!! After three days of endless frustration, the re-invite method fixed everything! I had my daughter log in and just re-type my email which reset my form. When I accepted the new invitation, most of my previous information was saved. The missing spouse SSN was magically back, and we were able to sign and submit! For anyone else dealing with this issue, try the re-invite method first before starting over. Thank you all for your help and suggestions!

GREAT now i have a new problem - after fixing the SSN issue our SAI calculation is $7,000 higher than it was before!! anyone else have their numbers change after fixing glitches??? this is going to destroy my kids financial aid package