FAFSA missing high school information section - college needs it but not showing on electronic form

Yes, this is actually a known issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA Simplification rollout. The high school information section exists in the database schema but isn't consistently appearing in the user interface for all applicants. There are two ways to handle this:\n\n1. Call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 and request that they manually add a note to your son's application indicating his high school information. They can access fields that aren't showing on your end.\n\n2. Submit a correction to the FAFSA, and specifically check the \

Thank you so much for this detailed response! I tried calling the FSA number you provided but I've been on hold for over an hour now. Do they always have such long wait times? I'll try the correction method next if I can't get through.

I went through this EXACT SAME THING with my daughter last week!!! The FSA phone line is a COMPLETE JOKE. I was on hold for 2+ hours and then got disconnected. THREE TIMES!!!! I ended up using Claimyr (claimyr.com) and finally got through to an actual human at FSA who fixed the high school section issue in about 5 minutes. They have this video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ\n\nSeriously, the new FAFSA system is such a disaster. Why launch something with so many bugs??? My daughter almost missed her scholarship deadline because of this stupid high school information glitch.

is this claimyr thing legit?? seems sketchy that you need to pay to talk to the government. shouldn't this be free???

It's definitely legit. I was skeptical too but it worked exactly as advertised. And think about it - how much is your time worth? I wasted HOURS trying to get through on my own. The FSA should absolutely fix their phone system, but until they do, I'm not wasting another day on hold when my kid's financial aid is on the line.

Omg literally dealing with this right now lol. My financial aid counselor told me that sometimes the high school info doesn't show up bc of how they coded the form but the info is still in their system somewhere?? Like the counselor could see that I went to West High but it wasn't showing up for me online... so confusing

That's frustrating! Did your counselor end up fixing it for you or did you have to do something else? I'm wondering if I should just have my son go directly to his financial aid office instead of dealing with the FAFSA people.

Ya they fixed it on their end! Just bring your son's high school transcript when you go to the financial aid office. That's what I did and they uploaded it to their system and said it would sync with FAFSA within 3-5 days

Im havng the same issue but with my community college they said I need to provide my high school or GED information but nowhere on the FAFSA form can I find where to put this. So annoying!!!!! They wont process my pell grant without it.

For community colleges specifically, they need to verify your ability to benefit from aid. Make sure you bring your official high school transcript or GED certificate directly to their financial aid office. They can process a manual override with that documentation while the FAFSA system issues are being resolved.

There's a workaround for this that worked for us. Print out the SAR (Student Aid Report), fill in the high school information section by hand, scan it, and email it to your financial aid office. We also brought a physical copy to the office. The school can manually input this information into their system. \n\nThe key is that you need to include your high school's federal code (6-digit number), which you can look up on the FAFSA website under the School Code Search section. Without that code, the financial aid office will have a harder time processing the information.\n\nThis is definitely a system bug related to the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation. The fields exist in their database but aren't displaying properly in the UI for everyone.

This is super helpful! I didn't realize you could just scan in the form with handwritten updates. We'll definitely try this approach. Do you happen to know where exactly I can find the School Code Search section? I've been poking around the site but can't seem to find it.

Sure thing! Go to studentaid.gov, click on

My nephew had this problem two weeks ago. Turns out his high school wasn't in the FAFSA system at all because it was a new charter school! He had to request a special override from both the school and FSA. Just something to consider if your sons school is newer or recently renamed.

i dont get why fafsa needs high school info anyway?? my efc is based on income not what high school i went to... the whole system is just designed to make it harder for people to get aid. they WANT us to mess up the forms so they can deny us!

The high school information isn't used for calculating your Student Aid Index (SAI, which replaced EFC). It's used for verification of identity, eligibility tracking, and for some state-based aid programs that have high school requirements. \n\nColleges also use this data for their institutional research and reporting requirements. It doesn't impact your federal aid eligibility directly - it's more about administrative needs and data tracking.

UPDATE: We finally got this resolved! For anyone facing the same issue in the future, here's what worked: we printed the SAR, filled in the high school information by hand (including the school code we found through the Federal School Code Search), scanned it, and emailed it to both our son's financial aid office AND the FSA help email. The college financial aid officer was able to manually update their system, and they said they'd note that the information was verified through documentation. Thanks everyone for your suggestions!

Glad it worked out! Just wondering - how long did it take from when you sent in the documentation until they confirmed everything was good? My daughter's priority deadline is coming up next week.

It took about 3 business days for them to process everything. They were actually pretty quick once they had the right documentation. I'd recommend following up with a phone call to the financial aid office the day after you send anything, just to make sure they received it!

I'm dealing with the exact same issue right now! My daughter's FAFSA was processed but her college is asking for high school info that just isn't visible on the online form. This is so frustrating - how did they launch a system with such obvious bugs? Reading through all these responses, it sounds like the manual SAR approach might be our best bet. @Omar Fawaz thanks for the update on what worked for you! Going to try printing the SAR and filling it in by hand like you did. Hopefully we can get this sorted before her aid package gets delayed any further. Has anyone had luck with the FAFSA correction method that @Chloe Martin mentioned earlier? I'm wondering if that might be faster than waiting for the manual documentation to be processed.

Just wanted to chime in as someone who's been helping families navigate FAFSA issues for a while now. This high school information bug is unfortunately becoming really common with the 2025-26 form. A few additional tips that might help others dealing with this: 1. If you're going the manual SAR route (which seems to work best), make sure to write clearly and include the date you're submitting it. Some financial aid offices are getting swamped with these manual corrections. 2. Keep a copy of everything you submit - both digital and physical. I've seen cases where documentation gets lost in the shuffle. 3. If your student attended multiple high schools or has a complicated education history (homeschool, GED, etc.), include a brief note explaining the situation along with your documentation. The good news is that most financial aid offices are aware of this issue now and have processes in place to handle it. Don't panic if you're hitting this bug - your aid won't be denied because of a system glitch, it just might take a few extra steps to resolve. Hopefully the Department of Education gets this fixed soon, but in the meantime the workarounds mentioned in this thread definitely work!