FAFSA says 'processed' but school claims they never received it - now stuck in limbo
I'm seriously freaking out right now! I submitted my daughter's 2025-2026 FAFSA back on May 12th and got the confirmation email showing it was officially processed on May 17th. I thought everything was fine until TODAY when her college financial aid office called saying they've got NOTHING from FAFSA for her. The advisor literally said, "We have no record of her FAFSA submission in our system at all." I've been checking the StudentAid.gov portal this whole time, and it clearly shows "PROCESSED" with her SAI score and everything! When I told the financial aid office this, they basically said "well, we don't have it" and suggested I resubmit. But the system won't let me resubmit because it says she already has a processed application! I spent 3 hours on the phone with FSA today getting transferred around. The last agent admitted there's some kind of system glitch where processed applications aren't being sent to schools. He said they've been seeing this problem "all week" and gave me a case number, but couldn't tell me when it would be fixed or what to do besides wait. Has anyone else run into this nightmare? Classes start in 6 weeks and her aid package is completely up in the air now. I saved every email and took screenshots of the processed application, but I'm worried she's going to lose her aid eligibility because of FAFSA's technical issues!
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GalaxyGazer
Update from the financial aid office side: The Department of Education just released guidance about this issue yesterday. Schools are now authorized to use the FAFSA confirmation emails as temporary proof of submission while they work on the transmission backlog. Bring a printed copy of your confirmation email and processed status page to your financial aid office IN PERSON if possible. Ask them to process a "conditional aid package" based on your SAI score while waiting for the official transmission. This won't work at every school, but many institutions are implementing this workaround to avoid delaying aid packages. The key phrase to use is "ED guidance on FAFSA transmission errors dated July 2025.
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Amina Sow
•This is fantastic news! I'll print everything out and go in person tomorrow. I really appreciate you sharing this update - I had no idea there was official guidance about the issue. Thank you so much for keeping us informed about what's happening on the institutional side.
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William Rivera
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this! I went through something similar last year (though not quite as extreme). A few things that might help while you're waiting: 1. Document EVERYTHING - sounds like you're already doing this, but keep taking screenshots daily of your processed status in case anything changes 2. Check if your school has a financial aid appeal process or emergency aid funds for situations like this. Many schools have contingency plans for FAFSA processing delays 3. If you haven't already, try calling the school's financial aid director directly rather than just the front desk staff. Sometimes they have more authority to work with unusual situations 4. Consider reaching out to your state's Department of Education office - they sometimes have liaisons who can help escalate federal aid issues The fact that the FSA agent acknowledged it's a known system issue and gave you a case number is actually good news - it means there's a paper trail. Keep that case number handy and follow up weekly if you don't hear back. Hang in there - this is definitely a FAFSA problem, not something you did wrong!
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Ian Armstrong
•These are really helpful suggestions! I especially like the idea about contacting the financial aid director directly - I've been dealing with different staff members each time I call, and it would be great to have one person who understands the full situation. I hadn't thought about state Department of Education liaisons either. Do you happen to know if they typically get involved with federal aid issues, or is it more for state-specific programs? I'm willing to try anything at this point. The documentation part is definitely something I'm staying on top of. I've been screenshotting the portal daily just in case something changes. Thanks for validating that this isn't my fault - I was starting to wonder if I missed some step in the process!
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Yuki Yamamoto
This exact same thing happened to my son last month! The "processed but not transmitted" issue seems to be hitting a lot of families right now. Here's what finally worked for us: 1. I escalated through the FSA ombudsman office (studentaid.gov/feedback-ombudsman) - they have more authority than regular customer service and can actually track where applications get stuck in the system 2. Asked the school to check their "pending transmissions" queue - sometimes applications sit there waiting for manual review, especially if there were any data matching issues 3. The breakthrough came when I found out my son's SSN had a minor formatting issue that caused it to hang in limbo between systems. The ombudsman was able to identify and fix this within 48 hours Also, keep calling FSA every few days with your case number - I found that different agents have different levels of access and knowledge. One finally told me about a "manual transmission request" they could submit, which I wish someone had mentioned during my first 5 calls! The good news is once they identify the actual problem, it usually resolves pretty quickly. Don't let them just tell you to "wait" - keep pushing for specifics about what's causing the delay.
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Zara Perez
•Thank you so much for sharing your experience! This gives me a lot of hope that there's actually a solution. I'm definitely going to contact the FSA ombudsman office today - I didn't even know that was an option. The SSN formatting issue you mentioned is really interesting. I wonder if that could be what's happening with my daughter's application too. When you say "minor formatting issue," do you mean like extra spaces or dashes that somehow got added? I'm trying to think if there's anything that could have gone wrong when I entered her information. I really appreciate the tip about asking different agents about the "manual transmission request." You're absolutely right that I shouldn't just accept "wait and see" as an answer when my daughter's financial aid is on the line. I'm going to be much more persistent about getting specific answers about what's causing the delay. Did the ombudsman office require any special documentation when you contacted them, or could you just reference your case number from the regular FSA calls?
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Mei Wong
I'm dealing with something very similar right now! My FAFSA shows processed since early June, but when I called my school yesterday they said they're still waiting for it to come through their system. The financial aid counselor mentioned they've been getting a lot of calls about this lately. What's really frustrating is that I can see all my information in the StudentAid portal - my SAI, school codes, everything looks correct. But somehow there's this disconnect between "processed" and actually getting to the schools. I'm going to try the ombudsman route that Yuki mentioned, and definitely going to ask about that conditional aid package option from GalaxyGazer. Has anyone had luck with getting schools to at least give you an estimated aid package based on your SAI while this gets sorted out? I'm worried about missing deadlines for things like work-study positions while we wait for this technical mess to get resolved. Thanks for posting about this - it's honestly a relief to know I'm not the only one dealing with this nightmare!
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