As someone who just went through this exact same situation last year, I completely understand your frustration! Our SAI was 17,800 and we also fell into that terrible middle-income gap. A few things that helped us: First, definitely appeal to the school directly - many have emergency or hardship funds that aren't widely advertised. Second, look into your state's 529 college savings plan tax benefits if you haven't already - even starting one now can provide some tax relief. Third, check if your son qualifies for any teacher-family scholarships specifically - the NEA Foundation and some state teacher unions offer grants for educators' children. Also, consider having your son take a gap year to work and save if his dream school is really unaffordable this year. Sometimes deferring enrollment for a year gives you more time to find funding sources and can actually strengthen scholarship applications. The financial stress is real, but there are more options than just federal aid. Don't give up!

I'm facing a very similar situation with my daughter! We're also educators (I'm a high school math teacher, my husband teaches elementary) with a combined income around $88,000 and our SAI came back at 16,890. Like you, we were shocked to not qualify for any Pell Grant money. What's particularly frustrating is that the FAFSA doesn't seem to account for the reality that teacher salaries, while steady, don't leave much room for college savings after supporting a family. I've been doing a lot of research since getting our results, and one thing I discovered is that many colleges have specific scholarships or grants for children of educators that aren't automatically applied - you have to seek them out separately. Also, some schools offer payment plans that spread the costs over 10-12 months instead of requiring large lump sum payments, which might help with cash flow even if it doesn't reduce the total amount. Have you looked into whether your son's school participates in any tuition exchange programs for educator families? Some state universities have reciprocity agreements that can significantly reduce out-of-state tuition if he's considering schools in neighboring states. It's not ideal that we have to jump through so many hoops, but every little bit helps when you're trying to avoid crushing debt for your kids' education.

Just wanted to follow up - did any of these solutions work for you? I'm curious which route ended up fixing the problem since I might run into this again with my younger sister applying next year.

That's awesome that you got it resolved! Thanks for sharing the update - it's really helpful to know what actually worked. The "infinite processing loop" explanation makes so much sense for why nothing was working on the website. I'm definitely bookmarking that Claimyr service for future reference since it sounds like the new FAFSA system still has a lot of bugs. Glad you didn't miss your deadlines!

To provide a complete answer to your original question: You have several options: 1. Use the 'transfer parent information' feature when starting child #2's FAFSA 2. Wait 3-5 business days for processing to complete, then you can view your submission 3. Request your Student Aid Report (SAR) which contains all submitted information 4. If absolutely necessary, contact FSA directly for immediate access For the future, always use the 'Save as PDF' feature before submitting any FAFSA forms. This creates a complete record of everything you've entered.

Just wanted to add another option that worked for me - if you have your FSA ID login info, try checking your email for the confirmation receipt that was sent when you submitted. Mine had a summary with most of the key financial numbers I needed for my second kid's application. It's not as detailed as the full form, but it had enough info to keep things consistent between applications. Worth checking your spam folder too since those emails sometimes end up there!

random question but does anyone know if you can use promise scholarship money for books and supplies or just tuition??

This is such valuable information! I'm a new community college student starting this spring and had no idea Promise Scholarships even existed. After reading through all these comments, I'm definitely going to check if my state has a Promise program. It sounds like it could really help cover what my Pell Grant doesn't. Does anyone know if there's a central website that lists which states have Promise Scholarship programs? I've been trying to figure out all my financial aid options and this seems like something I should have applied for already if it's available in my state.

Glad you got it sorted out! This is exactly why I always tell students not to panic when they see these system corrections. The FAFSA rollout this year has been rocky, but most of these backend fixes are actually helping students by catching small errors that could have caused bigger problems down the line. Your experience is pretty typical - a tiny AGI discrepancy that results in almost no change to your actual aid. Thanks for updating us with the resolution!

As someone who just went through the FAFSA process for the first time this year, this thread is incredibly reassuring! I noticed a system correction on mine about 3 weeks after submission and had no idea what it meant. The lack of transparency from the Department of Education about these corrections is really frustrating - they should at least send an email explaining what was changed instead of making us detective work through our SARs. It sounds like most of these are just the system cleaning up calculation errors from the new rollout, which makes sense given all the technical issues this year. Thanks for sharing your experience and the resolution - definitely saving this thread for future reference!