Kennedy Edgerton is a personal finance editor, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publication.
Kennedy Edgerton Personal Finance EditorKennedy Edgerton is a personal finance editor, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publication.
Written By Kennedy Edgerton Personal Finance EditorKennedy Edgerton is a personal finance editor, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publication.
Kennedy Edgerton Personal Finance EditorKennedy Edgerton is a personal finance editor, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publication.
Personal Finance Editor Dawn Nici Personal Finance EditorDawn Nici is a consumer finance editor. Her more than 20 years of experience in financial and business reporting includes coverage of the New York Stock Exchange and other major economic stories in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She spen.
Dawn Nici Personal Finance EditorDawn Nici is a consumer finance editor. Her more than 20 years of experience in financial and business reporting includes coverage of the New York Stock Exchange and other major economic stories in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She spen.
Dawn Nici Personal Finance EditorDawn Nici is a consumer finance editor. Her more than 20 years of experience in financial and business reporting includes coverage of the New York Stock Exchange and other major economic stories in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She spen.
Dawn Nici Personal Finance EditorDawn Nici is a consumer finance editor. Her more than 20 years of experience in financial and business reporting includes coverage of the New York Stock Exchange and other major economic stories in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. She spen.
| Personal Finance Editor
Published: Feb 23, 2024, 2:05pm
Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on Forbes Advisor. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations.
Getty
Students whose parents don’t have a Social Security number are now able to apply for college financial aid, according to the Department of Education. The department has announced that it is fixing a glitch in the newly revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, that had prevented parents without a Social Security number, or SSN, from successfully filling out the online form.
The permanent fix isn’t expected to be in place until the first half of March. But in the meantime, a temporary workaround is being offered that will let students submit an incomplete form that can be corrected later. The stopgap allows applicants who have parents—or in some cases, a spouse—lacking an SSN to file the FAFSA in time “to meet critical state, institutional or other scholarship organizational deadlines,” according to the Education Department.
Officials estimate that roughly 2% of college financial aid applicants have been experiencing problems related to the SSN problem.
“We appreciate the Department’s efforts to provide an interim solution for students who have been unable to complete the FAFSA,” said Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, in a news release. “But this interim solution…must not distract us from the need to stay squarely focused on a permanent fix.”
Completing the 2024-2025 FAFSA form is necessary to access federal student loans, federal grants, including Pell Grants, work-study opportunities and other college financial aid.
The Social Security number snag is just one in a series of problems with the updated FAFSA form since its rocky rollout on December 30, almost three months after it was scheduled to become available. For the first few days, the online FAFSA was inaccessible for long stretches of time.
Last month, the Education Department announced a revision to the form that freed up $1.8 billion in funding. It was needed because the FAFSA had been using outdated tables to assess families’ ability to pay for college.
The Department of Education has also pushed back the start date for sending FAFSA information to colleges to early March. The department had earlier said that it planned to begin transmitting data to schools in late January.
If your parents or spouse don’t have an active Social Security number, follow these steps to submit your FAFSA form.
Once your FAFSA form is processed, beginning in early March, the status on your StudentAid.gov account will read “Action Required.” At that time, your contributors should return to the form and provide final consent and approval.
Was this article helpful?
Share your feedback Send feedback to the editorial team Thank You for your feedback! Something went wrong. Please try again later. Find The Best Student Loan
By Caroline Basile
By Caroline Basile
By Caroline Basile
By Caroline Basile
By Taylor Medine
By Natalie Campisi
Information provided on Forbes Advisor is for educational purposes only. Your financial situation is unique and the products and services we review may not be right for your circumstances. We do not offer financial advice, advisory or brokerage services, nor do we recommend or advise individuals or to buy or sell particular stocks or securities. Performance information may have changed since the time of publication. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Forbes Advisor adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved, or otherwise endorsed by our partners.
Personal Finance EditorKennedy Edgerton is a personal finance editor, leveraging his passion for writing and personal finance to produce stimulating content that empowers readers to enhance their lives through advised decision-making. He has written for several publications, including college newspapers, websites, and blogs on topics relating to politics, music, sports and film. Kennedy is a graduate of Morehouse College with a degree in Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies.
© 2024 Forbes Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Are you sure you want to rest your choices?The Forbes Advisor editorial team is independent and objective. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive compensation from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Advisor site. This compensation comes from two main sources. First, we provide paid placements to advertisers to present their offers. The compensation we receive for those placements affects how and where advertisers’ offers appear on the site. This site does not include all companies or products available within the market. Second, we also include links to advertisers’ offers in some of our articles; these “affiliate links” may generate income for our site when you click on them. The compensation we receive from advertisers does not influence the recommendations or advice our editorial team provides in our articles or otherwise impact any of the editorial content on Forbes Advisor. While we work hard to provide accurate and up to date information that we think you will find relevant, Forbes Advisor does not and cannot guarantee that any information provided is complete and makes no representations or warranties in connection thereto, nor to the accuracy or applicability thereof. Here is a list of our partners who offer products that we have affiliate links for.
