FAFSA Fix To Allow Families To Submit Online Form Without A Social Security Number – Forbes Advisor – Technologist

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.

New FAFSA Rollout Plagued with Problems

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 It was needed because the FAFSA had been using outdated tables to assess families’ ability to pay for college.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.

How Parents Without SSNs Can Submit the FAFSA

If your parents or spouse don’t have an active Social Security number, follow these steps to submit your FAFSA form.

1. Create an account on StudentAid.gov and complete the Student section.
2. Invite your required contributors, such as your parents or spouse, to each create an account on StudentAid.gov. They will need to provide their first and last name, date of birth, email address and mailing address. The Education Department recommends that they leave the SSN field blank.
3. Enter your school(s) on your form, review the information and sign the document.
4. From there, you’ll need to enter each contributor’s information manually, including their gross annual income and federal tax information. If you have two contributors, you’ll need to repeat this step.
5. Submit the FAFSA once you’ve entered all the required information. The form will warn you that you’re submitting without contributor consent, but you can move on by pressing the “Submit” button.
6. If one parent has a Social Security number, but the other doesn’t, the parent with an SSN should create a StudentAid.gov account and fill out the form. If prompted to do so, they should then enter the information of the other parent.

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.