Workarounds offered to correct FAFSA question about being homeless

October 20, 2022

Students, who mistakenly answered yes to the “homeless or at risk of being homeless” question on the FAFSA and were prevented from providing parent information, now have some workarounds to proceed.

In an October 17 Electronic Announcement, the U.S. Department of Education said it is aware that there is an issue preventing students from submitting a correction when changing their answer to the “homeless or at risk of being homeless” question to “no.” If students previously answered “yes” to this question but changed their answer to “no” in the correction, an error prevents students from proceeding and providing parent information.

The Department offered the following workarounds for this issue while they work on a permanent technical fix:

• Fafsa.gov workaround (recommended): Students should start a correction and continue to indicate that they are “homeless or at risk of being homeless” by leaving their response to this filtering question as “yes.” Once they reach the “Homeless or at Risk of Being Homeless Acknowledgement” page, students should select “I will provide information about my parent(s).” This will bypass the error and allow students to proceed with entering parent information. Once the parent information has been added the correction can be submitted.
• Financial Aid Administrator (FAA) workaround: Students may contact their FAA, who can perform the change on the student’s behalf.
• Paper Student Aid Report (SAR) workaround: Students may request a paper SAR by contacting the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FED-AID (1-800-433-3243) and asking that a copy be sent via U.S. mail. Students can make the change on the form and return it via mail for processing.

In the announcement, the Department said it is diligently working to correct the issue and will notify the community once the fix is implemented.