FAFSA parent contribution link not working - husband can't access daughter's application after 3 weeks

same problem here!! my son sent me the link like a month ago and nothing came through. i ended up having to call the school financial aid office and they told us to try using a completely different email address for me. that actually worked! apparently sometimes certain email providers get blocked by the fafsa system or something?? worth a try

This is a common issue with the new FAFSA. There are three things that could be happening here: 1. Make sure your husband has his own FSA ID completely set up and verified. The contribution invitation won't work if his FSA ID isn't fully activated. 2. Check that your daughter correctly entered his information (exact name spelling, correct email, accurate SSN, and birth date). Even small discrepancies can cause the system to reject the connection. 3. There might be a technical glitch in the system. The 2025-2026 FAFSA has had several bugs related to adding contributors. I recommend your husband log into studentaid.gov directly with his FSA ID and check the "My Tasks" section. Sometimes the invitations appear there even when the email notification fails.

this is probably bcuz of the new fafsa system. its been super glitchy for everyone this year. my daughter had to completely restart her application TWICE because of similar issues with adding me as parent. so frustrating!!! 😡

I had this exact issue with my son's FAFSA last month. After trying everything (multiple browsers, different devices, etc.), what finally worked was having my son log in to his account and specifically going to the Contributors section. There's an option there to "Check Status" for each contributor invitation. In our case, it showed my invitation was "Pending" even though it had been weeks. He had to cancel that invitation and send a new one while I was sitting right next to him with my FSA ID already logged in on another device. As soon as he sent the new invitation, I refreshed my dashboard and it appeared immediately. If that doesn't work, you might want to try Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to a FAFSA agent faster. They have a service that helps you skip the hold times when calling Federal Student Aid. I was on hold for 2+ hours before I gave up, but my friend used Claimyr and got through in minutes. They have a video demo here: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ

IT MIGHT BE UR HUSBAND'S EMAIL!!! Yahoo and Hotmail specifically have been having MAJOR issues with FAFSA emails. My daughter couldn't add me as a contributor because I use Yahoo mail and NOTHING was coming through no matter how many times she resent it. Had to switch to Gmail and suddenly everything worked!!!!

just wanted to say that i feel your pain...the new FAFSA is a complete disaster compared to the old one. took us 5 weeks to get everything working for my twins applications. hang in there!

Have you tried calling the Federal Student Aid Information Center? Their number is 1-800-4-FED-AID. I know people say they're impossible to reach, but I called at exactly 8:01 AM Eastern when they opened and got through after only a 20 minute wait. They were able to check the system and see that my husband's invitation was stuck in some kind of processing queue, and they manually pushed it through. Worth a try!

did ur daughter check if she entered the wrong email for him? my son put .con instead of .com on my email and thats why i never got anything lol. such a simple mistake but took us forever to figure it out

Just an update on what we've been seeing with our college access program - the FAFSA's "contributor" function has been one of the biggest technical issues this application season. The Department of Education actually acknowledged there's a bug affecting about 20% of parent contributors. One workaround some families have used successfully: have your daughter upload the signed Alternative Documentation for Contributors form (it's on the StudentAid.gov site) instead of waiting for the electronic contribution. It's not ideal, but it can get you past this roadblock.