FAFSA rejecting my mom's SSN and birthdate mismatch - how to fix?

yeah i had this exact problem last year. turned out my mom's birthdate was wrong in the social security database. something about when she immigrated years ago they recorded it wrong. we had to go to the social security office to fix it. took forever.

This is a common problem that happens for several reasons. Most likely explanations: 1. There's a typo in either the SSN or birthdate you're entering (even though you think it's correct) 2. Your mom's records at the Social Security Administration have incorrect information 3. There's a name mismatch - the name on the FAFSA must EXACTLY match what's in the SSA database Before visiting an SSA office, double-check that you're entering her legal name exactly as it appears on her Social Security card. Any difference in spelling, hyphenation, or even middle initial can cause the mismatch error.

my cousin had this happen AND STILL GOT HER FINANCIAL AID!! just submit it with what u think is right and then call them after to explain. they can fix it later

One thing no one mentioned - check if you accidentally swapped month/day in the birthdate. Like if her birthday is January 5, make sure you're entering 01/05 not 05/01. I made that stupid mistake and spent weeks trying to fix what I thought was a database problem!

Financial aid counselor here. This is definitely something you need to address quickly since you mentioned state grant deadlines approaching. Here's what you should do: 1. First, call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-433-3243 to verify if they can see what specific mismatch is occurring 2. If they confirm it's an SSA database issue, your mother will need to visit a local Social Security office to correct her information 3. After the correction, it typically takes 1-3 days for the updated information to sync with FAFSA systems 4. While waiting, I recommend submitting a special circumstances form to your school's financial aid office explaining the situation and the steps you're taking to resolve it The most important thing is to start this process immediately - document all your calls and visits as evidence you were proactively addressing the issue before deadlines.

I actually ran into this exact issue when helping students with FAFSA. You might want to try Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get through to an actual FSA agent faster. They have this service that gets you a callback from FSA instead of waiting on hold forever. I used it last month when we had a similar SSN verification issue and got a call back in about 20 minutes. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The FSA agent was able to tell us exactly what was wrong in the system so we knew what needed fixing at the Social Security office.

The WHOLE SYSTEM is designed to make it difficult!!!! They WANT students to miss deadlines so they don't have to give out as much aid money. It's RIGGED against working families. My daughter had same problem and we ended up having to hire someone to help us fix it because the gov agencies kept sending us in circles for WEEKS!!!! THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN BY DESIGN!!!!!

btw after you get this fixed make sure you also check that your SAI calculation is correct. when we had our similar problem, they finally fixed the ssn/birthday issue but then our SAI was way higher than it should have been and we had to go through another whole process to fix that

Update: I used the Claimyr service and got through to a FAFSA agent who was super helpful. They confirmed the issue was on their end - mom's birthdate was entered incorrectly in their system decades ago. We have to visit the Social Security office with her birth certificate to get it corrected. The agent put a note on my file about the situation and told me to request a deadline extension from my school's financial aid office. Thank you everyone for your help! I'll post another update once everything is resolved.

Great to hear you got through to someone who could actually help! Just wanted to add - when you go to the Social Security office, bring multiple forms of ID beyond just the birth certificate if you have them (passport, driver's license, etc.). Sometimes they want extra verification for these types of corrections, especially if the error has been in their system for a long time. Also, if your mom is naturalized, bringing her naturalization certificate can speed things up since immigration-related records sometimes have these kinds of discrepancies. Good luck with getting everything sorted before your deadline!