FAFSA website maintenance nightmare - application deadline in 3 days!

Take a deep breath first - this happens more often than you'd think! I work in a financial aid office and here's what you should do: Email your school's financial aid office IMMEDIATELY with screenshots showing the maintenance page. Most schools will grant extensions in these circumstances, especially since it's a system-wide issue. Request a formal extension in writing and save their response. The SAI calculations might be delayed, but documenting your attempt before the deadline is critical for priority consideration.

this exact thing happend to me last cycle!! site was down for THREE DAYS and i almost missed my deadliine. emailed finacial aid office and they told me to just sumbmit as soon as site came back and theyd honor the date. def call them! dont just email

I've been through this before during the last major FAFSA update. Let me tell you, these maintenance periods are frustrating but typically last 24-48 hours. However, I've found a workaround that sometimes helps: try accessing the site through the Federal Student Aid mobile app instead of the website. Sometimes the mobile infrastructure operates on separate servers and might be functional. Also, clear your browser cache completely before trying again - occasionally it's just cached error pages you're seeing.

When I was trying to submit my FAFSA last month I couldn't get through for DAYS!! and when I finally did submit there were ERRORS in my SAI calculation because they messed up importing my tax info from the IRS DRT. Take screenshots of EVERYTHING - document all your attempts. The whole system is a nightmare this year with the FAFSA Simplification Act changes. My parents' contribution calculation was completely wrong at first!

omg i feel for you! this happened to my roommate too and she was CRYING. financial aid is so stressful already without this nonsense 😩

After struggling with FAFSA website issues for weeks, I finally managed to get through to an actual human at Federal Student Aid who fixed my application issues in minutes. I was about to give up after being disconnected five times in the regular queue. Finally used Claimyr (claimyr.com) to get connected directly to an agent - they have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ. The agent told me the maintenance should be completed by tomorrow morning, but they can note your account showing you attempted to submit before the deadline. Worth the time saved instead of stress-refreshing for hours!

The FAFSA system is DELIBERATELY DOWN to prevent people from getting aid! Wake up people! They do this EVERY YEAR right before major deadlines! It's a way to reduce how much financial aid they have to give out by making people miss deadlines. My cousin works in tech and says there's NO REASON maintenance needs to take down a website for days unless they're doing it on purpose. The whole system is rigged against low-income students!!!

When I had this problem I just drove to my college financial aid office and filled out a paper form saying I tried to submit. They put a note on my account and I got my aid without any issues when the site came back up. In-person always works better than emails for this stuff.

Good news - I just checked the Federal Student Aid Twitter account and they've announced maintenance should be completed by 6AM Eastern tomorrow. Make sure you're ready to submit as soon as it's back up. And yes, calling your financial aid office works fine too - just document the date and time of your call and who you spoke with. If possible, ask them to send you an email confirming your conversation about the extension.