The Student Aid Index (SAI), Explained

1What the number does

Every college that offers you need-based aid starts with the same subtraction: its cost of attendance minus your Student Aid Index. What is left is your financial need, the amount that need-based aid, such as subsidized loans and many college grants, is meant to cover.

That is why the same SAI can mean very different things at different schools. An SAI of 8,000 leaves little need at a college that costs $12,000 a year and a great deal at one that costs $60,000. The index stays the same; the cost it is set against changes. Every school on your FAFSA receives the same SAI you see in your Submission Summary.

The number runs from −1,500 to 999,999. A lower SAI means greater need, and a negative one tells a school that a family has very little capacity to pay at all. The floor of −1,500 is also where the formula puts every family that was not required to file a federal tax return.

2Three formulas, chosen by your answers

The FAFSA uses one of three formulas, and which one depends on whether you are a dependent student and, if you are independent, whether you support anyone besides a spouse.

Swipe sideways to see the whole table.

The dependency questions decide the formula, so getting them right matters more than any single figure. Our guide to dependent and independent status sets out who counts as which, and whose information goes on the form.

3How income is counted

The formula starts with total income: adjusted gross income from the tax return, plus certain untaxed income. For the 2027–28 FAFSA that means 2025 income, most of it transferred directly from the IRS.

It then subtracts allowances, so that the part of income a family needs to live on is not treated as available for college:

• Taxes. Federal income tax paid and payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
• An income protection allowance, which grows with family size. For 2027–28, parents in a family of four are allowed $46,590, and a dependent student's own income is protected up to $12,220.
• An employment expense allowance: for 2027–28, 35 percent of earnings, up to $5,200, for parents and for independent students who are married or have dependents.

What remains is available income. For parents, it is combined with a share of their assets and assessed on a sliding scale that runs from 22 percent to 47 percent, so each extra dollar of income or savings adds less than a dollar to the SAI. A dependent student's own available income, above the protected amount, is assessed at 50 percent.

4How assets are counted, and what is left out

Assets are counted as they stand on the day you sign the FAFSA, not as of the tax year. Parents' net assets are counted at 12 percent before they join available income on the sliding scale; a dependent student's own assets are counted at 20 percent, which is why savings in the student's name weigh more than the same savings in a parent's.

The business and farm exclusions came back with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, starting with the 2026–27 FAFSA. A family that owns a qualifying small business or lives on its farm leaves that net worth off the form entirely.

5Independent students: Formulas B and C

Formula B, for independent students with no dependents other than a spouse, protects $19,000 of income for 2027–28, or $30,470 for a married couple, assesses what remains at 50 percent and adds 20 percent of net assets. There is no sliding scale; the two contributions are simply added together.

Formula C, for students who support a child or another dependent, works more like the parents' formula. It protects more income, $57,050 for a single parent with one child and $59,930 for a married couple with one child, counts only 7 percent of net assets, and runs the total through the same 22 to 47 percent scale. That is why an older student raising children can have a much lower SAI than one with the same income and no dependents.

6What changed when the SAI replaced the EFC

The SAI arrived with the FAFSA Simplification Act and replaced the Expected Family Contribution starting in 2024–25. Three changes matter most to families.

Siblings in college no longer lower it. The old formula divided the parents' contribution by the number of children in college at the same time. The SAI does not, so two students from the same family each receive the full parental contribution. A college can still take a sibling's costs into account through professional judgment, but it does not have to.

It can go below zero. The old figure stopped at zero. The SAI goes down to −1,500, which gives schools a finer sense of need among the families with the least.

Some families skip the arithmetic. Families not required to file a federal tax return receive an SAI of −1,500 automatically, and low-income families can qualify for the maximum Pell Grant through an income test even when their SAI is above zero.

7Your SAI and your Pell Grant

Pell is where the SAI turns most directly into money. With an SAI of zero or below you qualify for the maximum award, $7,395 for 2026–27. Above zero, the award is generally the maximum minus your SAI, rounded to the nearest $5, down to the $740 minimum. An SAI of $14,790 or more, twice the maximum, rules Pell out for 2026–27. Our guide to Pell Grant eligibility covers the income tests that can lift a student to the maximum or the minimum regardless.

8A hypothetical family, from SAI to need

A school's offer then fills that need with whatever it has, from grants to work-study to loans, and what it cannot fill is the part your family pays from savings, income or other borrowing. The College Financial Aid Calculator can show how that adds up across offers.

9When the formula does not fit your life

The SAI is built from a tax year that can be two years old by the time you enroll. If your family's situation has changed since then, through a job loss, a divorce, a death or large medical bills, file the FAFSA as it stands and then ask each school's financial aid office about a professional judgment review. Aid administrators can adjust the information used in the formula case by case, with documentation, which can lower the SAI. They are not required to, and the decision is the school's.