Mom's account tangled with mine on FAFSA - can't get her to sign parent section

same thing happened with my dad lol. the FAFSA website is sooo confusing this year

Your mom needs to recover her FSA ID account instead of creating a new one. This is a common issue with the FAFSA's new system. Here's what to do: 1. Go to studentaid.gov/fsa-id/sign-in 2. Click on "Forgot Username or Password" 3. Have your mom enter her email or phone number 4. Complete the identity verification steps Once she recovers her account, she'll be able to access her dashboard and see your FAFSA listed in her "Action Items" section where she can complete her portion. Make sure she uses HER email and phone, not yours, when recovering the account.

I had this EXACT problem last month!! It was such a nightmare. We ended up having to completely delete my FAFSA application and start over. BUT before you do that drastic step, try calling the Federal Student Aid Information Center directly. The regular phone numbers are useless - I kept getting disconnected too. My financial aid advisor told me about this service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me through to an actual FAFSA agent in about 10 minutes instead of waiting for hours. They have a video showing how it works here: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ The FAFSA agent was able to untangle our accounts on their end. Apparently this is happening to tons of people with the new system.

THE SAME EXACT THING HAPPENED TO ME AND MY PARENTS!!!! The new FAFSA is a DISASTER compared to last year!!! I ended up having to get my school's financial aid office involved after trying for TWO WEEKS to fix it ourselves. They had some direct contact at the Department of Education who eventually fixed it, but it took forever and I almost missed my priority deadline.

This is a common issue with the new FAFSA system. I work in a college financial aid office, and we're seeing this almost daily. Here's what's happening behind the scenes: When your mom entered her information in your account, the system created a partial FSA ID for her linked to your email/phone. Now when she tries to create her own account, the system sees her SSN is already in use. There are three options to fix this: 1. Account recovery as mentioned above (works about 60% of the time) 2. Contact FSA directly to have them unlink the accounts (works almost always but takes time) 3. Start a fresh FAFSA application and ensure separate accounts from the beginning (last resort) For option #2, the Federal Student Aid Information Center (1-800-433-3243) can help, but wait times are currently 2-3 hours due to high volume. Calling early morning (right when they open) or using a callback service improves your chances. Don't panic about deadlines - many schools are being flexible this year due to the systemic FAFSA issues.

anyone else think its ridiculous they completely overhauled the fafsa system and then provided basically zero support for all the problems? like how are average families supposed to figure this out??

Have you tried using different browsers? Sometimes the FAFSA site has weird glitches that resolve with a different browser. My application kept freezing in Chrome but worked fine in Firefox.

UPDATE: We finally got it fixed! The account recovery method worked after a couple tries. For anyone with this same problem - make sure you're using the EXACT email that was originally entered in the mixed-up account. We kept trying with my mom's main email but it turns out she had used her work email when entering info in my account. Thank you everyone for all your help! I can finally sleep tonight knowing we're back on track with the FAFSA.