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Summary: FAFSA on the Web - Current PIN Server Issues

Publication Date: February 28, 2002

Author: General Manager: SFA Student Channel

Summary: FAFSA on the Web - Current PIN Server Issues


Posted on February 28, 2002

To: Financial Aid Administrators
From: The Department of Education
RE: FAFSA on the Web - Current PIN Server Issues

Your students may have been experiencing difficulties accessing Renewal applications or providing electronic signatures via FAFSA on the Web. These difficulties have been caused by technical issues involving the PIN site. We are currently working as quickly as possible to resolve the issues, and implemented two changes last night that should provide significantly more reliable responses from the PIN site.

Currently, both the FAFSA on the Web and PIN sites are up and running well. Since the beginning of the filing year (January 1, 2002), FAFSA on the Web has been used to submit over one million FAFSA applications. On Tuesday, February 26, CPS received almost 44,000 applications from FAFSA on the Web, and over 55,000 yesterday.

We understand that many students are up against state or school deadlines this time of the year, and filing their FAFSA is imperative. If the PIN site response times remain slow later today (even though we have done our best to NOT have this happen), we recommend that students use the original (non-renewal) FAFSA form on the web to submit their FAFSA applications. Of course, as soon as we are beyond March 2, the extreme usage on the sites will drop off and we expect that there will be no problems using the web sites.

The original FAFSA on the web form can be accessed by going to www.fafsa.ed.gov, clicking Fill out a FAFSA, and following the instructions from there. Please make sure to remind your students to answer NO to any questions pertaining to electronic signatures, which appear before the application. The confirmation page will print, and the ISIR record will carry, the date submitted as the receipt date, thereby allowing students who submit the FAFSA on the deadline date to have met the deadline. Choosing to sign via a signature page will not preclude a student and/or a parent from electronically signing later, but also will allow a student to mail any signatures immediately.

If you have questions regarding FAFSA on the Web, please contact FAFSA on the Web Customer Service at

1+(800) 4FED-AID [or (800) 433-3243].

Thank you for your patience in this matter and would like to reiterate that we are working diligently to address issues on the PIN site as they arise.