FAFSA parent confusion - Created student account but unsure if I need separate parent form

No, don't start a new application! You just need to be invited to contribute to your daughter's existing FAFSA. She needs to log into her studentaid.gov account, go to her 2025-2026 FAFSA application, and add you as a contributor. The system will send you an email with instructions on how to access her application to complete just the parent sections. Your FSA ID is what you'll use to sign in and electronically sign the form when you're done.

we had the same thing happen last year. drove me CRAZY!!! the email took like 3 days to come through for some reason. check all your folders

Make sure your daughter entered your email correctly when adding you as a contributor. If she made a typo, you won't get the email. Also, sometimes the system gets backed up during peak application times. If you still don't receive it after 48 hours, have your daughter log back in and check the status of the contributor invitation or try removing you and re-adding you as a contributor with the same email that's connected to your FSA ID account.

the whole contributor thing is so stupid. my son's college made me call them 4 times about this. why dont they just let the parent fill out their part from their own account?? its ridiculous.

I had trouble getting access to my son's FAFSA last month, and after spending HOURS trying to get through on the phone to ask someone at Federal Student Aid, I found this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an actual human at FSA in about 20 minutes instead of waiting forever on hold. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The agent confirmed that I was supposed to have gotten an email invitation and helped send a new one. Turns out there was some glitch in the system that was preventing the contributor emails from going out. Might be worth a try if you still can't get the email after a few days.

One more thing to check - sometimes the contributor email goes to your spam folder. Make sure you're checking there too. Also, verify with your daughter that your contribution status shows as "Invited" and not "Completed" or something else in her FAFSA dashboard. Sometimes kids accidentally click things!

this happened to me too! eventually got the email after like 4 days. the whole contributor setup is confusing. good luck!

Just to clarify one more important point - you absolutely NEED your own FSA ID as a parent contributor. The FSA ID you created is correct and necessary. You'll use it to electronically sign the FAFSA after completing your section. Just make sure the email associated with your FSA ID matches the email your daughter entered when adding you as a contributor.

UPDATE: I finally got the contributor email! It actually came through this morning. My daughter had to go back into her FAFSA and re-send the invitation. Make sure she clicks on the "Contributor" section in her FAFSA and checks that your status is "Invited" and not something else. The parent section wasn't too bad - took me about 30 minutes to complete once I had all our tax info ready.