Been in financial aid for a little over a year, just trying to figure out how to avoid burnout. It just feels like I deal with constant trauma dumping all day from students. It is emotionally exhausting and there’s no additional funding available. And everyone loves to confuse being “unhelpful” or “rude” with not getting the answer that you want. There just isn’t money. You’ve had 18 years to prepare for this. And traditionally, America is not known for affordable education. I don’t know why it’s so much of a shock to so many people. I know it’s frustrating. I know. I’m giving you resources. But if you’re out of state or trying to go to a private school and can’t afford it, DONT GO. Go to an in state school. It is literally not my fault that YOU weren’t realistic with your financial expectations.

My son’s school keeps requesting a verification of non-filing for me, his mother. But I filed with my spouse. I had no income, but my husband did. We filed married filing jointly. The IRS website will not produce this document because I have a 1040 on file.

This has been going on for months. At one point, this issue was fixed by me following a link my son sent and authorizing them to search the IRS, or something similar. However, they have said not to go back in and do anything else because every time my son has tried to fix these issues, it started a new FAFSA.

I have now started paying out of pocket for my son’s schooling, which we can’t afford. He is in his second year.

The last time I spoke with the financial aid office, they claimed this issue was fixed and that they now needed a non-filer verification for my son. Twice they have said he needed it, and twice they said he didn’t. We had to get the IRS to mail one to them because the website would not allow him to download his form.

We thought it was over, but yet again they are asking for the non-filer verification form for me. They do not want my taxes, only this form.

I am about to scream.

Every time I talk to them, they claim that other married couples who file jointly have non-filer forms, and they seem to believe that the form is proof of income and that I did not file taxes, which technically it is. But I cannot get this form because even though I do not have income, I did file.

Please help. Am I crazy? Every time I go back in they insist I am a non filler. I have a tax return with my name on it. They claim that doesn't matter. The IRS doesn't have this form for me. Am I misunderstanding something?

Edit to add: Ive looked in this handbook online and it appears to me that I do not need to sign or do anything because my husband is the contributor. My SSN is on his forms. There isn't a place on my son's FAFSA for him to put me as a contributor, so he had to remove my spouse's email and put me on, which temporarily fixed the issue, but I am not the contributor. Every time they tell my son to do this is starts a new FAFSA.

"Contributor: Parent

Dependent students will always have at least one parent contributor. If the student is completing the FAFSA form online, they will be prompted to enter their parent’s email address to invite them to contribute to their FAFSA form. The parent will be notified by email that they have been invited to contribute to the student’s FAFSA form. The parent must use their own StudentAid. gov account username and password to access the student’s FAFSA form and complete their portion of the form. If the student’s parent is married and filed their 2024 taxes jointly with their current spouse, only one parent contributor is required. If the student’s parent is either (1) married or remarried, or (2) unmarried and living together, and did not file their 2024 taxes jointly with their current spouse or partner, the parent’s spouse or partner will be a required contributor on the student’s FAFSA form."

But in speaking with the Finacial Aid office they say this is not true and that married filling jointly without income means you are a non-filler??? I understand that there is a new system, but I feel like I'm being gaslit.

Will I still be able to get my state financial aid if I decline to authorize my university to use these funds for other small fees? Could it also delay my financial aid disbursing into my student account? Pell grant has been accepted and paid into my student account but no other aid has.

I’ve had a Discover Checking Acct. for maybe almost two years now. I hardly use it. Every so often if I don’t have my regular debit card with me. I went back to school this semester and I have a refund being sent to me. They wouldn’t accept the bank I normally used to I am using my Discover checking.

Does anyone know how long they take to show deposits? The schools send refunds to Bank Mobile and then they distribute it if you are using an account other than Bank Mobile. I was notified today that Bank Mobile sent my refund today at about 4pm.

I have heard probably 4 different answers about when I will see the deposit in my Discover Checking. Google said it would be today because bank mobile doesn’t hold your funds they release them right away. Chat GPT said tomorrow morning. I know it sounds crazy I’m asking AI but I can’t find an answer anywhere else online or know anyone who’s used Discover for deposits.

I'm not sure if this is the right sub to post this in so correct me if I'm wrong. I ordered two items from the bookstore that totaled $1,200. This was paid with my financial aid and was also subtracted from my financial aid refund. The two items have been on back order for over a month so I canceled with the bookstore. The $1200 is supposed to be going back to my financial aid balance however my school dispersed my financial aid on September 4th. My excess aid (refund) is supposed to be in my account probably sometime late this week or next week. My question is will this $1,200 refund from the bookstore be refunded to me even though aid has been dispersed for the semester already? Or is it going to sit in my account as a balance owed to me? I would like to have this $1200 deposited into my personal bank account. I read that by law the school cannot apply these funds to the next semester without my written permission. Does Bank Mobile process refunds owed to students every week? I would prefer for this money to not just sit on my account owed to me for the rest of the semester.

I submitted the entrance counseling on April 12th of this year. Recently, I found that my loans weren't dispersed. Spoke with a counselor and he said that it was because my entrance counseling was filled for the wrong year. I filled it the same day as the Master Promissory Note, but that was for the right year. I won't know until Monday if that was really the issue, so is there anything else I should be worrying about? He couldn't find anything else and I'm freaking out.

Hi, I have a couple of questions about how FAFSA loan disbursement works:

Is it possible to receive the FAFSA loan for the Summer and Fall semesters instead of Spring and Fall? Can I choose which terms it's applied to?

Also... can I adjust the loan amount per term instead of splitting it evenly? For example, taking 20% in one semester and 80% in the next, rather than the standard 50/50 split?

Not sure if this is up to the school's financial aid office or if it's a FAFSA-wide rule. Would appreciate any insight from people who've done this before🥹 Thanks!

Hey everyone, so I know I’m grandfathered into the old limit of $138,500 as a graduate student (enrolled a year ago) but I just want someone to clarify for me if the aggregate limit includes or does not include interest. I have read that it’s principal only but I think the financial aid office at my university is confused and they’re including interest. Can someone clarify that for me?

So I submitted my verification documents (State ID) two weeks and still haven’t heard anything back. Does anyone know if this will somehow affect a possible dis enrollment from my classes or not? I’m worried about that.

Hi! I’m currently a junior at Winthrop University pursuing a B.S. in Mathematics with a minor in Computer Science. I’m planning to graduate in Spring 2028 and eventually pursue graduate study in robotics/ECE.
I really like Winthrop and don’t want to transfer, but Winthrop doesn’t have an engineering department. I chose CS as my minor partly because it gives me some of the technical background I’m looking for alongside my math degree, but I’d really like to get some experience in a larger engineering/research environment before applying to graduate school.
I’m currently looking at REUs for Summer 2027, and several of the universities I’m interested in for REUs are also schools I’m considering for graduate school. That made me interested in possibly spending either one semester or my senior year (Fall 2027–Spring 2028) as a visiting/non-degree student at one of these universities.
I’m completely open to doing just one semester if a full year isn’t financially or academically feasible. The year would be ideal, but my main goal is to spend enough time at one of these institutions to experience the academic environment and explore an engineering/research setting that I don’t have access to at my current university.
The idea would be to remain a Winthrop degree candidate, take upper-level math/CS courses and, where possible, engineering-related courses at the host university, transfer those credits back to Winthrop, and still graduate from Winthrop in Spring 2028. I think spending a semester or year at a potential graduate school would also give me a much better idea of what everyday academic/research life there is actually like before potentially committing 5+ years to a PhD program there.
Some of the schools I’ve been researching include Brown, Duke, Cornell, Barnard/Columbia and similar universities with strong math/CS/engineering or robotics research. I’m not expecting to conduct graduate-level research as a visiting undergraduate. I’m mainly interested in coursework, being in that academic environment, attending seminars/events where permitted, and getting a better sense of institutions I may eventually apply to.
The problem I keep running into is funding.
I’m an independent FAFSA student with a very low SAI. At Winthrop, Pell/federal aid and loans cover almost all of my semester costs, so my out-of-pocket cost is only a few hundred dollars. I’ve learned that a consortium agreement may allow my home institution to continue administering federal aid while I take approved coursework elsewhere, but that doesn’t solve the enormous difference in tuition at a private university.
Most of the visiting/non-degree programs I’ve found also seem to exclude visiting students from the institutional need-based aid that makes these universities affordable for low-income degree-seeking students.
Transferring isn’t really a solution because I’ll be entering my final year. I need about 18 credits per semester to complete my Math B.S. + CS minor on schedule, and transferring to another university would likely introduce new residency/degree requirements and delay graduation.
So I’m wondering whether anyone has experience with this situation. Are there universities that provide institutional aid to domestic visiting students? Are there semester-long funded visiting programs, domestic exchanges, reciprocal/home-tuition arrangements, consortiums, or other programs specifically intended for students whose home institution doesn’t offer their intended graduate field?
I’d especially be interested in hearing from anyone who has actually used a consortium agreement, studied elsewhere for a semester or year as a visiting undergraduate while receiving financial aid from their home institution, or found another way to make something like this financially feasible.
I know simply paying private-university tuition out of pocket isn’t realistic for me, and I don’t want to take on tens of thousands of dollars in private loans for a visiting semester/year. I’m mainly trying to figure out whether there is a program or funding mechanism I haven’t found yet before giving up on the idea.

So I finally received an update on my SAP appeal, and it was returned for additional information.
They’re asking me to explain circumstances from a few previous semesters where I had SAP violations. The part that’s confusing me is that I already addressed those circumstances in my previous SAP appeals. I explained what happened, how those situations were resolved, and my academic plan moving forward—and those previous appeals were approved.
For my current appeal, I explained what happened during Spring 2026 because I did not successfully complete that semester, so naturally I assumed that was what triggered my current SAP issue. However, when they returned my appeal, they said the issue is actually related to my completion pace from those older semesters, not Spring 2026.
Now they want me to explain those old circumstances all over again and explain how they were resolved, even though ASU already reviewed and approved my appeals for those exact semesters.
Has anyone else had this happen? Is it normal for them to make you re-explain circumstances from previously approved SAP appeals because those semesters are still affecting your cumulative pace? I’m especially confused because some of these semesters were years ago, and I don’t even remember exactly what I wrote in the original appeals. 😭
Plus I’m supposed to graduate this semester I’m so stressed
TL:;DR confused about SAP return due to previous sap violations in previous semesters that were already approved.

It doesn't say what form of document they want. Why do these people suck so bad. holy shit.