FAFSA shows processed but university flagged an error - system glitch?

same exact thing happend to my son last week! university financial aid office sent us into full panic mode with some vague email about "unresolved issues" but fafsa showed everything was fine. turned out to be the university's system that hadnt updated. call your schools financial aid office directly, dont trust the portal

This is a fairly common issue this year with the new FAFSA system. What's happening is that the SAI calculations are being processed correctly by the Federal Student Aid office, but there can be a delay in how the information is transmitted to individual schools. Each school's system needs to properly "digest" the FAFSA data, and sometimes their automated systems flag discrepancies that don't actually exist. I recommend: 1. Take screenshots of the processed status on StudentAid.gov 2. Email those to your daughter's financial aid office 3. Follow up with a phone call to confirm they've received it 4. Ask specifically what error they're seeing on their end Most of these issues resolve within 5-7 business days as the systems synchronize, but with a scholarship deadline looming, you'll want to be proactive.

Just went through this nightmare last month. The issue wasn't actually with FAFSA but with how my daughter's university was interpreting the data. The financial aid office claimed there was a "household size mismatch" even though everything was correct on our application. Took EIGHT phone calls to get it fixed because we could never reach an actual person. The call system kept disconnecting us after 30+ minutes on hold!

I've been helping students with FAFSA issues for years, and this particular problem has become more common with the new FAFSA simplification rollout. There's often a disconnect between the federal processing system and university importing systems. One thing that's worked for many families I've advised: call the Federal Student Aid Information Center directly to get official confirmation that your application is truly processed with no issues. Then ask them to note this in your file. Having this official confirmation from FSA has helped many students expedite resolution with their university. If you're having trouble getting through on the FSA phone lines (which is common), I recently discovered a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that can help you bypass the wait times and get connected to an agent quickly. They have a video demo at https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ that shows how it works. Several of my advisees have used it successfully when facing urgent FAFSA deadlines.

Usually when this happens it means there's a specific verification issue. Your daughter likely got selected for verification (about 30% of applicants do). When this happens, the FAFSA itself shows as processed, but the school needs additional documentation. Common documents they might need are: - Tax transcript verification - Identity verification - Household size verification - Income verification for non-tax filers I recommend checking your daughter's financial aid portal specifically for a "To-Do List" or "Required Documents" section, not just the general status. The error is probably listed there rather than on the FAFSA site itself.

btw theres a whole facebook group for fafsa nightmare stories this year if u want to join... literally thousands of parents dealing with the exact same issues after they "simplified" the system lol. search for "fafsa parents support 2025-2026" and youll find it

Just a quick update on your situation - since you mentioned the scholarship deadline next week, make sure you're documenting all communication with both FSA and your university financial aid office. If the error isn't resolved quickly, having this documentation will help you request an extension on the scholarship deadline by proving you've been actively working to resolve the FAFSA issue. Most scholarship committees will grant reasonable extensions when there are documented financial aid processing issues outside your control.

I'm dealing with something similar right now! My FAFSA shows processed on StudentAid.gov but my college keeps saying there's a "data mismatch" that needs to be resolved. The frustrating part is that when I call the school, they can't tell me specifically what the mismatch is - they just keep saying "contact Federal Student Aid." But when I call FSA, they say everything looks fine on their end! It's like being stuck in a loop between two systems that aren't talking to each other properly. Has anyone found a way to get both sides to actually communicate and figure out where the real issue is?