11 Common FAFSA Mistakes that can derail your financial aid
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Completing the FAFSA correctly is critical if you want to receive financial aid. Here are some common errors to avoid when you complete or renew your FAFSA.
What is the FAFSA?
The FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and it is the financial aid form students must complete to be considered for federal student aid programs, including federal student loans, work-study, and federal grants and scholarships. Your FAFSA information may also be used by your state and by colleges to determine your eligibility for non-federal aid. To put it simply, the FAFSA is an important form you’ll want to fill out correctly. Here are some common mistakes that could delay or negatively affect your financial aid awards.
1. Waiting to file your FAFSA
Submitting your FAFSA as early as possible helps to ensure that you will meet each college’s financial aid deadline, as well as deadlines for state aid and scholarships. Some colleges have only so much financial aid available and they dole it out on a first-come, first served basis. This is why financial aid experts and counselors recommend completing your FAFSA as soon as possible after it is released.
The FAFSA form is usually released to the public each year on October 1. However, last year’s FAFSA (which determined financial aid for the 2024-2025 academic year) was released on December 30, 2023 due to changes in the application. This year’s FAFSA (which will determine financial aid for the 2025-2026 academic year) will be released by December 1, 2024, to allow the Department of Education to test the application with select user groups before releasing it to the general public.
Regardless of when the FAFSA is released, it’s important to submit it as soon as possible to maximize your eligibility for grants and scholarships. This applies whether you are submitting the FAFSA for the first time or renewing it. The FAFSA applies to a single academic year, which means you need to submit a form each year.
2. Not having (or forgetting) your FSA ID
To complete and submit the online FAFSA, you’ll need your own StudentAid.gov account and username and password (referred to as your FSA ID). Setting these things up before you sit down to complete the FAFSA can be a time-saver.
If you are a dependent student, you, your parent, and anyone else who will contribute to the FAFSA form must have their own, separate FAFSA account and FSA ID. Asking your contributors to create their account and FSA ID as early as possible may streamline the process for them.
3. Supplying incorrect personal information
The FAFSA will ask for personal data including your Social Security number, date of birth, and email address. Double- and triple-check this information. Use your full legal name as listed on your Social Security card. If you are a student, use your permanent address, not your school address or a temporary address.
If you are inviting parents, spouses or others to contribute to your FAFSA, make sure you include correct names and email addresses for each contributor.
4. Leaving answer fields blank
Empty answer fields will cause processing errors and may cause your FAFSA to be rejected. Unless the instructions say you can leave the answer field blank, input a zero for answers requiring numbers and N/A (not applicable) for other answers.
5. Reporting financial information for the wrong parent
If you’re a dependent student, your parents or guardians will usually need to provide information about their income and assets. Whether both your parents or guardians need to provide this information depends on their marital and tax-filing status.
For example, if a student’s parents are divorced, one or both parents – or a stepparent – may be required to report financial information. To find out which parent needs to supply financial information on your FAFSA, see the Department of Education’s free tool “Who’s My FAFSA Parent?”
6. Including the wrong assets
The FAFSA will ask you and your parents to list your assets, including checking and savings accounts. However, you do not need to include the value of retirement accounts, home equity for the home you live in, assets of a business with less than 100 employees, and college savings accounts not in your or your parents’ name (such as, accounts in your grandparents’ names or the name of another relative).
Some people mistakenly include the same assets in both the parent and student sections of the FAFSA. A parents’ assets should be reported by the parents when they complete their portion of the FAFSA, and a student’s assets should be reported by the student. A 529 plan set up by a parent for which their child is the beneficiary should be reported as the parent’s asset, not the child’s asset.
7. Reporting tax and other financial information from the wrong year
You and your family will report tax information from the “prior-prior” year on the FAFSA. For example, if you are completing the 2025-2026 FAFSA, you and your parents or guardians will report information from your 2023 tax forms. The online FAFSA pulls tax information automatically from your IRS forms, so reporting data from the wrong year is less of a risk than it was in previous years (unless you’re completing the paper version of the FAFSA). However, it’s important to keep the correct tax years in mind and have a copy of the correct IRS forms handy, just in case you need to enter the data manually.
8. Providing an e-mail address you don't regularly check
College financial aid offices tend to contact students by email, so make sure to check your email often. The financial aid office may have questions, and will need timely answers to process your application as quickly as possible.
9. Incorrectly counting household size
The FAFSA asks how many people in a household will be attending college during the financial aid award year. Students sometimes forget to include themselves in that group. Siblings and other members of the household must be attending college (or a program that leads to a college degree or certificate) at least half time to be considered a college student on the FAFSA.
10. Forgetting to sign and date your FAFSA form
When you reach the end of your FAFSA, don’t forget to sign the form. Your FAFSA will not be processed until you and any other contributors to your form have signed it.
11. Failing to carefully review your FAFSA Submission Summary
After you submit the FAFSA, check the dashboard of your StudentAid.gov account for your FAFSA Submission Summary. The summary can take up to three business days to be displayed on your dashboard and will include the dates your application was received and processed and a copy of your completed FAFSA. It will also include:
- Your Student Aid Index, which is a number that colleges use to create your financial aid offer.
- The estimated size of your federal Pell Grant, if you qualify for one.
- Important information about the colleges you listed on your FAFSA, including graduation rates, average student debt, transfer rate, and average annual cost.
- Any additional steps you may need to take to receive financial aid.
Review the answers you submitted for any errors. It’s possible to submit corrections to some types of errors within the Submission Summary, and it’s best to do this as soon as possible. Also, carefully review the Next Steps tab of the report, which might include actions you need to take immediately, such as sending additional documentation to a school. Failing to make corrections or take required actions quickly might affect or delay your financial aid awards.
We hope this list of common FAFSA errors will help you complete the FAFSA more efficiently, meet your FAFSA deadlines, and avoid mistakes that could delay or lower your aid package. Good luck!
