This year they did and, in fact, exceeded it, based at least on the EFC. That’s why I’m wondering how SAI might change things - if it is to be used somehow differently than the EFC was and if that will therefore affect how much need-based aid they decide we need.
That’s a pretty good explanation - thank you!
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I don’t think there is a big difference in how the colleges use the FAFSA info. For institutional aid, they can take the data from the FAFSA and go from there. That’s what they always did.
The SAI will primarily determine eligibility for things like the Pell grant.
I think the name change was to clarify what this really means…as noted.
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Yes, that makes sense - thank you!
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You are correct.
That is very helpful. I wonder how this calculation of need will play out for students with a negative SAI. Many of the colleges that meet need use the CSS profile anyway so it might not make a difference. Still there must be some reasoning behind the new FAFSA making it possible to calculate a negative SAI rather than old version, which I believe bottomed out at a zero EFC.
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Isn’t a negative SAI going to be a pell grant? I know the lower supposedly the better.
It has been so long since doing a FAFSA and then for it to change is really confusing.
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Yes, but SAI zero and low positive SAIs will also qualify for Pell/partial Pell grants.
Having a negative SAI allows colleges to identify the most needy students (often there was bunching up at EFC 0).
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This is terrifying. Time to email my congressman.
My kid is about to head back to his 4th semester at UC Berkeley and the Middle Class Scholarship (CA only) is currently covering 60% of his tuition and fees. If that were to change significantly it would be a huge hardship. Fafsa is still on our to-do list as I’ve been watching all the advice roll in here.
I got this message over 10 days ago when we completed the FAFSA, and still have not received any further communication/info:
" We can’t calculate your SAI. Continue reading for more details.
The SAI is not a measure of how much student aid you’ll receive or how much you’ll pay for college. Schools use your SAI to determine your federal student aid eligibility.
Based on the eligibility criteria, you don’t appear to be eligible for a Federal Pell Grant. However, you may be eligible for other federal, state, or institutional grants; scholarships; and/or work study programs."
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And you won’t receive any further communications until FSA finally completes processing your FAFSA (supposedly in late January).
I am frankly stunned by this. I assumed that the FAFSA would be provisionally processed right away, with an estimated SAI and the caveat that the SAI may change when processing is completed. In the meantime, the student would be able to add a missing signature, fix things that they did wrong, add schools, etc. Then at the end of January, after FSA fixed their own issues, the SAI would go through a final recalculation before being sent off to schools. Silly me, I was thinking logically. I was very wrong. Things are stuck in various stages of limbo, with no real communication from FSA and no ability for the student to make necessary updates in a timely manner. I honestly didn’t envision that it would be this big a mess, especially since FSA had a very long lead time on the project.
And don’t even get me started on the fact that FSA expects schools to implement changes on an extremely short timeframe, including changes effective in the past. With financial penalties for noncompliance. Sheesh.
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Thank you so much! When we filled out the form, son created an ID for the first time. I’m not sure if that is why but I will be patient and wait and see.
So ours was stuck in “waiting for student signature” and “in review” for a week or so. Now it says ours was submitted Jan 3. We never got a SAI (said it needed signature) and have had no communication at all, nor did she ever correct the lack of signature issue. Do I need to do anything? I’m not expecting to qualify for aid but was following the rules and trying to submit anyway.
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Hello everyone -
Has anyone else has this issue where in step 2 “Financial info: Parent Apouse’s or Partner’s Information” gets filled out and the response is “information entered does not match our records”?
We know that my information is correct, DOB, SSN…etc. But this step halts us from continuing. I also do not have an existing FASFA account. My spouse also filed a complaint but no response yet.
Anyone has any idea what is going on here?
We received the exact same message. No updates as well. Shoot! I’m not expecting much aid but it would be nice to have a clearer communication.
This is what happened to us. I finally gave up and I haven’t tried to go back in again. My daughter attends a CSS school and we don’t qualify for Pell so it’s not the end of the world but it would be tough not to get her subsidized loan next year. Plus I assume the school requires FAFSA as well as CSS even if we were willing to forego the loan but it can probably wait.
That article appears to be very old news about legislative changes to FAFSA in 2021, and while it correctly notes winners and losers relative to previous formulations, the issue of fairness is a matter of opinion, and has been discussed in earlier years.
The current discussion is about the current fiasco of actually implementing the changes (independent of any opinion about which changes are good or bad).
For anyone who has an issue and doesn’t know what to do, I strongly encourage you to file a complaint: Federal Student Aid.
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What you are concerned about is State financial aid. Presumably that’s a separate issue from the Federal financial aid being discussed here.