They make us do it every year because our financial situations change. Some people might qualify for more aid their sophomore or junior year if their family income drops. But I agree it's super annoying!!

That's a good plan. Also, make sure your school doesn't have any early priority deadlines. Some schools have January deadlines for certain scholarship packages, so check with your financial aid office to confirm. Since you've already done the 2024-2025 FAFSA, the 2025-2026 one should be a bit easier. Your FSA ID will already be set up, and some of your basic info will carry over. You'll just need to update any income changes and review your contributor information. One other thing to remember: if your financial situation has changed dramatically since 2023 (like job loss or major medical expenses), you can submit an appeal for professional judgment to your school's financial aid office after you receive your aid package. They can adjust your aid based on your current situation, regardless of what the FAFSA shows based on 2023 taxes.

Oh no! That's exactly the kind of mistake I'm afraid of making. Thank you for the warning. I've got a small 401k and our home, so I'll be sure not to include those. I'm sorry that happened to your family - that's a huge financial hit.

That's smart advice about the screenshots! I'll definitely do that. I have all our W-2s in a folder already, so I'll keep those handy too. Thanks again for all your help!

I didn't think about verification being the issue since I never received a clear notification about it. I just checked my studentaid.gov account and don't see anything obvious about verification, but I'll click through all the sections again to make sure I'm not missing something. Would my school also be notified if verification was needed?

Yes, your school would be notified if verification was needed, but sometimes there's a communication gap. In my experience, it's worth directly asking your financial aid office if your application has been flagged for verification. They can see status details that might not be immediately visible to you in the student portal.

Thank you for checking with a specialist! You're right about retirement accounts - we weren't sure how to handle my husband's 401k and my Roth IRA. I'll start fresh and make sure to report each account with the correct person rather than trying to split them. And yes, he does have some small business income so I'll be extra careful with that section. You've been incredibly helpful!

While I understand your frustration, this specific issue is actually documented in the FSA knowledge base. It's related to the database architecture that doesn't properly separate historical student records from current parent contributor roles. The recent system upgrades were supposed to fix this, but clearly some edge cases still exist. I recommend documenting all your attempts to resolve this for your daughter's financial aid office - they can sometimes process a provisional financial aid package while technical issues are being resolved.

yeah well they've had YEARS to fix these "edge cases" and millions of dollars in funding. my nephew lost a scholarship last year because of fafsa delays. just saying it's suspicious how they always have problems right when deadlines are approaching

Glad you got it fixed! I'm going to save this thread in case anyone else in my daughter's high school parent group runs into the same problem.

Thanks for updating us with the solution. This is actually becoming more common as more parents who received federal aid themselves are now having children applying for college. The FSA system needs better handling of dual-role users (those who were once students and are now parents).

Great question. There's no specific dollar threshold that changes how these payments are treated for FAFSA purposes. Whether it's for a meal plan or full tuition, payments made directly to the institution by a third party are handled the same way. However, larger amounts might trigger more scrutiny or questions from the financial aid office, and as others have mentioned, some schools might adjust current year aid packages differently depending on the amount.

Generally, independent student status is advantageous for financial aid because only your income and assets (and your spouse's if married) are considered - not your parents'. This typically results in a lower Student Aid Index (SAI) and potentially more need-based aid. However, independent students also lose access to certain types of aid like Parent PLUS loans, so there are trade-offs.