FAFSA grant reduction from $22k to $600 - can't fix error message on portal

omg this EXACT same thing happened to me!! my grant went from 18k to like 1200 and there was some weird error message. studentaid.gov is completely messed up this year

The system is experiencing major glitches right now. What's likely happening is that there's a verification flag on her account that's preventing corrections AND causing the grant calculation to be incomplete. Your daughter needs to go to her school's financial aid office ASAP with a copy of her SAI report and all your tax documentation. They can override the system lock and submit a manual correction. The difference between $22k and $600 is too extreme to be an actual recalculation - it's definitely an error in how the system is reading her application data.

Try logging in from an incognito window or different browser. Sometimes the system has cache issues that prevent making changes. Also double check if her dependency status somehow changed or if there was a typo in reported income (like an extra zero somewhere). Those are the two most common reasons for drastic grant reductions.

This is happening to a lot of families this year. The new FAFSA process has created several system bugs. One specific issue is that the system sometimes fails to properly calculate the Student Aid Index (SAI) when there's a mismatch between tax data and what was manually entered. Even a small discrepancy can trigger this. You need to contact Federal Student Aid directly. However, I know the phone lines are completely jammed right now. I recently discovered a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that helped me get through to an agent in about 15 minutes instead of waiting for hours. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ Once you reach an agent, ask specifically for a "manual SAI review" and explain the error message preventing corrections. They can unlock your daughter's application for editing or submit the correction directly.

This happend to my son. Turned out we accidentally clicked that we own a business on the FAFSA (we don't). That one mistake dropped his grant from $15k to $2k! It was a mess to fix but his financial aid officer submitted a correction form and it got fixed after about 3 weeks. Definitely check ALL the answers on the FAFSA, not just the income parts.

the whole system is RIGGED anyway. my daughter had perfect grades and we got NOTHING because I supposedly make "too much" even though we live in an expensive area and can barely pay rent. these grant calculations are completely arbitrary and designed to exclude middle class families!!

did u check if maybe ur daughter got classified as independent by accident? that happened to my friend and it completely messed up her financial aid

UPDATE: I just checked with a colleague in our financial aid office. There's a known system-wide glitch affecting students with any form of work-study income from the previous year. The system is incorrectly counting work-study earnings twice - once as income and once as financial aid received. Since you mentioned your daughter had a campus job, this could be the exact issue. The solution is to file a specific correction form called the "Income Adjustment Request" through her school's financial aid office. Bring documentation showing her work-study income specifically labeled as such. The school can submit this directly to bypass the system lock.

keep us updated on what happens! i'm sure other people will run into the same issue