Mine also corrected again yesterday (after I posted my first response here). SAI went up by $1000 (I think actually less - more like $700-800 but I can’t remember the other number exactly) which was already up $2000 (give or take) from the original SAI calculated in March when we first filed. But it’s still at least $1000 less than last year with significantly more income so I’ll take it. All is moot though until we see what the school does with the CSS.
I’m surprised a CSS school didn’t give you an FA offer with the acceptance letter or a day or two later? That is the typical way.
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I can’t believe it’s April 29 and this BS is still going on. Hang in there everyone.
@Juno16 im also a little surprised that a CSS school hasn’t sent an award letter by now. Has your student checked their student portal and spam folders! It might be there
I believe the poster is talking about a returning student not a rising freshman. At least with my D22, the deadline for returning students is actually May 1. And financial aid awards will not be sent until around June 1 even if you have submitted your FAFSA and CSS earlier in the spring.
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Yes sorry returning student. I think we’ll be lucky to see it by July unfortunately
Thanks for the clarification. I don’t think either of my finds saw returning aid awards before July…actually, I know they didn’t! We did Tuition Pay every year guessing what the actual cost of attendance would be!
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What’s the highest possible SAI? I’m wondering if there’s an error when our SAI is 2 times the cost of annual tuition plus room and board. Seems crazy.
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I am not sure but maybe it’s still 999,999, same as the largest EFC on the old FAFSA…@kelsmom do you know?
Although on a google search I am finding some sources that say there is no SAI ceiling.
FSA’s SAI factsheet doesn’t address a range: https://financialaidtoolkit.ed.gov/resources/bfbf-sai.pdf
My D24 received email today from one of the school Financial Aid offer
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There is no longer a ceiling. If SAI is twice COA, there will be no need based aid. The student can borrow an unsubsidized federal student loan in the amount of annual limit for year in school ($5,500 freshman). There will be no federal work study award. Merit, if any, will be the only institutional aid (unless it’s a Profile school & they treat your situation differently for their aid than the federal formula treats it for federal aid … although we usually hear that the Profile contribution is calculated at more than the federal contribution, not less).
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Do you mean EFC calculated by the school?
SAIseems off. I give up!
Oops - I meant COA! I’ll edit the post. Thanks!!
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High income + significant non-retirement assets can result in a very high SAI.
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Mine was corrected today and I get an extra $350 in my Pell Grant
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To get an SAI of 220K, one possible combination would be something like 300K income and 2.5 million in non-qualified assets. Other combinations of lower income & higher assets, or higher income & lower assets could also get to an SAI of 220K.
If this is wildly off, perhaps there is a typo somewhere with an extra zero.
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@OregonMom2024 can you check your FAFSA entries for your assets? Perhaps there is an error there.
I don’t know what college you are talking about, but with our income, the FAFSA EFC (back when that was the name) was almost twice the cost of our instate public university. Public university at the time was about $25000 a year, and our FAFSA EFC was $45,000. So…this IS possible.
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According to the Department of Education, “almost all” FAFSAs needing reprocessing have been sent to the schools now. They did determine that reprocessing would not have resulted in a change to SAI for some FAFSAs that were impacted by the issues that prompted reprocessing; the decision was made that those FAFSAs would therefore not go through reprocessing. So I assume any reprocessed FAFSA due to issues created on the IRS or processor side will have a different SAI (either higher or lower). Of course, whether or not aid is impacted by the change to SAI is dependent on the individual and the school.
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As mentioned, ours was reprocesssed Sunday night and went down $21.
I’ve gotten two communications from schools today indicating that they have reissued our aid package. Just looked and one was adjusted by $70.
I feel bad for these FA offices.
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@kelsmom Would you have any suggestion on how to get an application out of draft status? I am trying to help a student whose application is stuck in draft with all the sections complete except the signature portion and the student can’t access the signature section. When we go to all other sections, all the info is there. On the colleges section (last one before signature), all the schools are listed properly. When we click on “continue” to advance to the signature section, the form kicks back to financials. We reenter the data and advance further to colleges then it forces us back to financials.
Is there any way to access signatures directly? Both parents (married filing separate) are contributors on the application and both their portions are filled out properly and signed. But the student’s section is stuck in draft for weeks and calling FAFSA hasn’t resolved the issue. FAFSA people claim they see the form complete from their side but no one including the colleges has received a report.