Help, Freaking Out. My Husband Included Protected Retirement Money on FAFSA

Parents Forum
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My husband submitted the FAFSA today. He included our Retirement Accounts on both the savings and the asset portions—
Even though I told him those don’t count and even though it says on the form not to include those.

It took my daughters SAI from $29K to $50K.

I know we can amend the FAFSA.

Do I need to call each school’s financial aid office? How screwed are we? How long does it take to fix this?…someone said it could be months.

I am beside myself, very upset.

Any advice or experience will be helpful.

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just amend it online. It’s a common mistake. Changes take effect almost immediately. If your D applied early, and she gets accepted, you can confirm with the finaid office that they used the corrected number. If she is applying RD, it won’t matter since the finaid offices won’t be looking at the numbers yet.

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Thanks. She had applied EA to all of them and has 2 acceptances already.

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once you receive any Finaid offer, just email back and explain that you made a mistake on the form which was corrected, so you want to make sure that they received the correct info.

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Make the corrections online and resubmit the FAFSA to every school,that received the wrong info.

Don’t forget to do the submission again!!

@kelsmom

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You will have to wait until the FAFSA processes (a few days) to make these corrections.

This may help: Federal Student Aid

And this:

See the presentation linked here for some info on how to make corrections (slide 249 may help): 2025-26 FAFSA Preview Presentation

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It’s easy to make the change. Just be sure to submit after changing the number. The school will automatically get the updated FAFSA after you submit it, and they will use the most recent transaction you submitted.

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Thank you; this helps.

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I used to work in financial aid. You caught the issue plenty early & all will be fine!

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Whew, thank you! Now I can sleep tonight!

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My husband did the same thing and it was easily fixed after about 48 hours. The way the worded the questions is very ambiguous. It’s an easy mistake to make.

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Thank you so much.

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Just to update—
My husband was able to make corrections today. My daughter resubmitted. SAI is now within expected range.

Thanks to everyone for the reassurance and help.

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