Why haven't we received our FAFSA SAI score after successful January submission?

SAI stands for Student Aid Index. It's basically a number that determines how much financial aid your daughter qualifies for. Think of it like a score that tells colleges how much your family can afford to pay for college, which then helps them figure out how much aid to offer. As for not receiving it yet, the Department of Education has been experiencing significant delays this year with the new FAFSA rollout. Many families who submitted in January are still waiting. You should be able to view your SAI by logging into the studentaid.gov portal and checking your FAFSA confirmation page. The SAI should appear there once processed.

the sai is that number thing that tells if ur kid gets $ or not lol. my nephew got his after like 5 weeks so just wait probably

There's no way to explain this like you're talking to a 3rd grader because the ENTIRE SYSTEM is broken! My son submitted his FAFSA on January 2nd and we STILL don't have an SAI either. Called FSA 11 times and either got disconnected or was on hold for 2+ hours before giving up. This is THE WORST rollout of any government program I've ever seen! The SAI is replacing the old EFC and it's SUPPOSED to be available within 3-5 days of processing but NOTHING is working right!!!!

I was finally able to reach someone at Federal Student Aid about this exact issue last week after multiple failed attempts. Here's what they told me: 1. The SAI (Student Aid Index) is the number that replaces the old EFC (Expected Family Contribution) in determining aid eligibility 2. Due to the FAFSA Simplification Act implementation, many applications are taking 4-6 weeks to process, especially those submitted in January 3. You need to have your daughter contact her schools immediately and explain the situation - most schools have contingency plans for delayed SAIs I recommend using Claimyr to get through to an actual FSA agent quickly. Saved me hours of frustration. Just go to claimyr.com and they'll get you connected to a real person. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/TbC8dZQWYNQ

To answer your question more directly in simple terms: The SAI (Student Aid Index) is like a financial need score. Lower numbers (even negative ones down to -1500) mean your family qualifies for more aid. Higher numbers mean less aid. Colleges use this number to determine grants, work-study eligibility, and loans. The SAI score should appear on the FAFSA confirmation page once processing is complete. What's happening this year is the Department of Education completely redesigned the FAFSA form and their systems are experiencing major delays.

This reminds me of when my son applied last year and we had a similar issue but with the old EFC not the SAI since that's new. We ended up having to send in additional verification documents because we had some unusual income situations from selling property that year. Maybe there's something in your application that triggered additional review? Just a thought.

I work in a financial aid office, and we're seeing this with about 60% of our applicants this year. The new FAFSA rollout has been incredibly problematic. Here's what I recommend: 1. Have your daughter email all her schools' financial aid offices explaining that her FAFSA is still processing 2. Ask each school if they have a provisional form or process for students with delayed SAIs 3. Send screenshots showing your FAFSA is still processing 4. Most schools are creating extension processes specifically for this situation The SAI (to explain simply) combines your income, assets, family size, and number of college students to create a single number. The formula is complicated, but essentially measures what the government thinks you can afford to pay.

After trying EVERYTHING to get our SAI (submitted Jan 3), I finally got through to FSA using that Claimyr service someone mentioned. It really did work! The agent told me there was a processing issue with our application because we have twins both applying this year and the system was having trouble processing applications with multiple students from the same household. They manually fixed something on their end and our SAI showed up the next day! Might be worth checking if you have any unusual circumstances.

my kid got the sai after 3 weeks. just checked one day and it was there. number was way too high tho 😢

One more important thing to understand about the SAI - many colleges are still figuring out how to use it in their aid formulas since it's new. The SAI can actually go as low as -1500 (which wasn't possible with the old EFC), and this can mean more aid for very low-income families. While you're waiting, make sure your daughter has completed any school-specific financial aid forms too. Some schools have their own forms in addition to the FAFSA, like the CSS Profile for private colleges. Those forms aren't affected by the FAFSA delays.

Update: I finally got through to FSA and found out that applications submitted in the first two weeks of January got caught in a massive processing backlog. The rep told me they're working through them chronologically. January 1st submissions should be fully processed by end of this week according to them. STILL RIDICULOUS but at least there's a timeline now.