What Does a Student Aid Report Look Like? Tabs, SAI, and Codes

What used to be called the Student Aid Report now looks like a four-tab online dashboard called the FAFSA Submission Summary. The Department of Education replaced the Student Aid Report starting with the 2024–25 award year under the FAFSA Simplification Act.¹ The new document shows the same core things the old report did: your Student Aid Index (the successor to the Expected Family Contribution), your estimated federal grant and loan eligibility, every answer you submitted, and the schools you listed. It just presents them inside your StudentAid.gov account instead of as a standalone PDF.

The Document at a Glance

Open your StudentAid.gov dashboard after your FAFSA has been processed and the summary appears as a tabbed page with four sections: Eligibility Overview, FAFSA Form Answers, School Information, and Next Steps.¹ The top of the page carries Department of Education branding and the Federal Student Aid seal, your name, and the award year. The layout is plain: white background, dark text, blue highlights on the active tab and on links.

If you filed without an email address or without an FSA ID, you get a paper version in the mail instead. The paper copy covers the same sections using printed headers in place of clickable tabs and typically arrives seven to ten business days after processing.²

The first thing to look at is the status banner. If it reads “Action Required,” the Department processed your form but found a problem, most commonly a missing signature or missing consent and approval from a contributor. You will not be eligible for federal student aid until that is cleared.³

Eligibility Overview Tab

This is the tab with the numbers. At the top sit the date your application was received, the date it finished processing, and a four-digit Data Release Number.⁴ Below those, you see your Student Aid Index and your estimated federal aid, including Pell Grant eligibility and the federal loan types you qualify for.

Your Student Aid Index

The Student Aid Index is the single figure colleges use to measure your financial need. It can run from negative 1,500 to 999,999, and a lower number means greater need.⁵ An SAI between zero and negative 1,500 automatically qualifies you for the maximum Pell Grant.⁶ When your school builds your actual award, any negative SAI is treated as zero for Pell purposes, so students at negative 1,500 and students at zero get the same Pell amount. The negative value still shows on your summary because some schools use it to prioritize their neediest applicants for additional grants like the FSEOG.

At the other end, an SAI of $14,790 or higher for the 2026–27 award year means no Pell Grant at all. That cutoff is simply twice the maximum Pell amount.⁷

Pell Grant Estimate

Right beside your SAI, the tab tells you whether you qualify for a Pell Grant and shows an estimated amount. For 2026–27 the maximum is $7,395 and the minimum is $740.⁷ Students with an SAI of zero or less receive the full $7,395. Everyone else who qualifies gets $7,395 minus their SAI as the scheduled award. You can receive up to 150 percent of that scheduled award in a single year if you enroll in more than one academic term.

Federal Loan Estimates

The tab also lists the Direct Loan types you can borrow and the estimated annual amounts, which depend on your year in school and whether you are a dependent or independent student.⁸

Dependent first-year undergraduates: up to $5,500 combined, no more than $3,500 subsidized.
Dependent second-year undergraduates: up to $6,500 combined, no more than $4,500 subsidized.
Dependent third-year and beyond: up to $7,500 combined, no more than $5,500 subsidized.
Independent undergraduates: combined limits from $9,500 to $12,500 per year, with the same subsidized caps.
Graduate and professional students: up to $20,500 per year in Direct Unsubsidized Loans only.

Your Data Release Number

The four-digit Data Release Number on this tab is the code you give the Federal Student Aid Information Center if you need help correcting your form over the phone, or that a financial aid administrator uses when making changes on your behalf.⁹ The same number appears in your confirmation email and on the confirmation page you saw after submitting.

FAFSA Form Answers Tab

Think of this tab as a receipt. It reproduces every answer you submitted, line by line: personal information, household size, dependency status, assets, and each contributor’s financial details. Read it carefully for typos and outdated entries.

Tax information looks different from the rest. Under the Direct Data Exchange created by the FAFSA Simplification Act, the IRS now transfers federal tax data straight to the Department of Education under 26 U.S.C. § 6103(l)(13).¹⁰ For privacy, those transferred figures are not displayed on your summary. Instead, each tax field shows a “Transferred from the IRS” label where the dollar amount would normally appear.¹¹ Those fields are also locked in the online correction tool.³

School Information Tab

You can list up to 20 colleges on your FAFSA at one time.¹² This tab shows each school you selected along with comparison data pulled from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System: graduation rates, retention rates, and average annual cost of attendance.¹³ The figures are standardized across every school that participates in federal aid, so you can compare them side by side before award letters arrive.

Adding a new school when the list is already full will replace one of the existing entries, and the Department only sends your information to the schools currently on the list, so pay attention to institutional deadlines before swapping anyone out.

Flags, Codes, and Statuses to Look For

Some summaries carry markings that call for follow-up. The most consequential is a verification flag: if your application was selected for verification, an asterisk appears next to your SAI, and your school’s financial aid office will ask you for supporting documents such as tax transcripts or proof of household size.⁴

Comment codes flag specific data problems. Common ones from the 2026–27 cycle include:

Code 006, SSN mismatch. The Social Security Administration could not confirm your Social Security number. If the number on your form is correct, update your records with the SSA and then call the Federal Student Aid Information Center to resync.
Codes 007 and 008, name or date-of-birth mismatch. Either fix the entry on your application or resolve the discrepancy with the SSA.
Code 017, citizenship not confirmed. You did not indicate U.S. citizenship or eligible noncitizen status. Eligible noncitizens need to correct the response and supply an Alien Registration Number so the record can be verified with the Department of Homeland Security.
Code 003, unusual circumstances. You indicated something affecting your dependency status, and a financial aid administrator will review the situation individually, possibly asking for documentation.

A summary can also come back rejected. The usual causes are an incorrect Social Security number, a name that does not match SSA records, or a missing signature from the student or a parent contributor. A rejected application shows no SAI and no aid estimate until the problem is fixed.

How To Pull Up Your Summary

Sign in at StudentAid.gov, open your dashboard, and look under “My Activity” for your processed FAFSA. Selecting it opens the link to your FAFSA Submission Summary, which you can view, download, or print.⁴ Online submissions filed with an FSA ID generally produce a summary within three to five days, with an email notification when it is ready. Paper filers wait seven to ten business days for the mailed version.²

If Something on the Summary Is Wrong

Most entries can be fixed by logging back into StudentAid.gov, selecting the submission from your dashboard, and choosing “Start Your Correction.”³ The tool walks through each section that needs updating. Dependent students who change anything about their parents will need those parents to log in separately, re-sign electronically, and resubmit their part.

A few things work differently:

IRS-transferred tax figures cannot be edited online. If a tax number is wrong, the fix has to go through the IRS or be flagged to your financial aid office.
Adding or removing schools uses its own button on the dashboard rather than the general correction flow.
Missing signatures have a dedicated “Provide Signature” option on the processed submission.

The federal correction deadline for the 2026–27 award year is September 12, 2027, but state grant programs and individual colleges often award on a first-come, first-served basis with priority dates as early as February. An error left sitting can quietly cost you aid that runs out long before the federal window closes.

1
Federal Student Aid. FAFSA Submission Summary: What You Need To Know
2
Federal Student Aid. Updates on 2024-25 FAFSA Paper Processing (Updated October 18, 2024)
3
Federal Student Aid. How To Review and Correct Your FAFSA Form
4
Federal Student Aid. Learn About the FAFSA Submission Summary
5
Federal Student Aid. The Student Aid Index (SAI) Explained
6
Knowledge Center. Use of Negative Student Aid Index (SAI) in Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Selection Criteria
7
Knowledge Center. 2026-27 Federal Pell Grant Maximum and Minimum Award Amounts
8
Federal Student Aid. Annual and Aggregate Loan Limits – 2025-2026 Federal Student Aid Handbook
9
Federal Student Aid. What is a Data Release Number?
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 6103 – Confidentiality and Disclosure of Returns and Return Information
11
Federal Student Aid (FSA) Knowledge Center. FAFSA Simplification Act Changes for Implementation in 2024-25
12
Federal Student Aid. If I Want To Apply to More Than 20 Colleges, What Should I Do
13
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). IPEDS