Thanks everyone for the helpful information! I called our school's financial aid office this morning and confirmed we can borrow up to the cost of attendance minus other aid through Parent PLUS, and that it's per academic year. They also explained that while my daughter's $5,500 federal loan is disbursed by semester, we need to start planning for next year since the amounts and process will be slightly different. Really appreciate all the explanations about repayment timelines too - we're going to request deferment on the Parent PLUS until after graduation.

Welcome to the community! As someone who just went through this process with my own child, I wanted to add a few practical tips that might help: 1. When you apply for the Parent PLUS loan, make sure to do it early in the process - approval can take a few weeks, and you want the funds available before tuition deadlines. 2. Keep detailed records of all loan disbursements and payments. The loan servicers can be confusing to deal with, and having your own documentation helps immensely. 3. Consider setting up automatic payments for any loans you do take - most servicers offer a 0.25% interest rate reduction for autopay, which adds up over time. 4. If your daughter's college costs change (like if she moves off-campus junior year), you can adjust your Parent PLUS borrowing accordingly each year. The Parent PLUS loan process definitely has a learning curve, but this community is great for getting real-world advice from parents who've been through it. Don't hesitate to ask more questions as they come up!

My daughter went through this exact situation last year! I remember being so confused about why we needed to submit another FAFSA when she'd just been approved for Spring. What nobody told me was that some schools have scholarship programs with January deadlines that require the FAFSA to already be processed! She missed out on applying for a $2500 departmental scholarship because our FAFSA wasn't completed in time. Learn from my mistake!

As someone who just went through this process myself, I can confirm that yes, you absolutely need to complete the 2025-2026 FAFSA now even though your daughter just got approved for Spring 2025. I made the mistake of thinking I had more time since we "just finished" the last application, but I quickly learned that financial aid operates on academic year cycles, not calendar years. The 2024-2025 FAFSA only covers through Spring 2025, so if your daughter plans to attend Summer 2025 or Fall 2025, you'll need the new application. I ended up rushing to complete ours in early January and barely made our school's priority deadline of February 1st. My advice? Get it done this week while you still have all your documents organized from the previous application!

Update: I got my SAI score today! It was processed without any issues or additional information needed. Thanks everyone for reassuring me that I wasn't going crazy. The new system is definitely different but I guess that's a good thing if it makes the process faster. Now to figure out what this SAI number actually means for financial aid...

Congratulations on getting your SAI! That's such a relief when you've been worried about whether everything went through correctly. For anyone else reading this thread who might be in a similar situation, Oscar's experience is a perfect example of how the new FAFSA process is supposed to work. The streamlined system with automatic IRS data retrieval has eliminated a lot of the manual data entry that used to cause so many errors and headaches. While the change confused those of us familiar with the old process, it's actually working as intended for most families. Thanks for sharing your update - it's helpful for other parents who might be experiencing the same anxiety!

This exact same thing happened to us two years ago! At first I was so confused and honestly a little frustrated - like why would getting MORE aid result in "worse" loans? But after talking to the financial aid office, I realized it's just how the federal system is designed. The subsidized loans are essentially a limited resource that goes to students with the highest calculated need first. When your son's scholarship reduced his "need" on paper, it freed up some of that subsidized loan money for other students who now had relatively higher need. It's actually kind of fair when you think about it that way. The silver lining is you can now reject some of the unsubsidized portion since the scholarship covers more of his costs. Congrats on the additional scholarship - that's the real win here!

This is really helpful to read as someone new to navigating FAFSA! I'm currently going through this process with my first child and had no idea that scholarships could affect the type of federal loans offered. It's good to know this is normal and not something to panic about. The explanation about subsidized loans being need-based makes total sense now. I'll definitely keep in mind that we can accept less than the full loan amount offered - that seems like a key point that isn't always made clear. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences!

This is such great advice from everyone! As someone just starting this process with my daughter, I had no idea that the SAI was just the beginning of the calculation. The point about creating a spreadsheet to compare actual out-of-pocket costs versus total "aid" packages is brilliant - I can already see how easy it would be to get confused by schools that offer large aid packages that are mostly loans. I'm bookmarking this thread because there's so much practical information here that you just don't get from the official FAFSA materials. Thanks to everyone for sharing their real-world experiences!

As another parent just entering this process, I'm finding this conversation incredibly educational! My daughter is a junior and we're just starting to research colleges and financial aid. Reading about everyone's experiences with the SAI calculation and how differently schools handle aid packages is both helpful and a bit intimidating. I had assumed that the FAFSA would give us a clear picture of what we'd pay, but it sounds like that's just the first step. The advice about not ruling out expensive private schools due to potential institutional aid is particularly surprising to me. I'm definitely going to start researching which schools on our list require the CSS Profile and begin preparing for what sounds like a much more complex process than I initially thought. Thank you all for sharing such detailed experiences!