What is the Student Aid Index (SAI)?

The Student Aid Index (SAI) will replace the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) as of the 2024-2025 award year. The SAI reflects an evaluation of a student’s approximate financial resources to contribute to the student’s post-secondary education for an academic year.

Notable changes to the federal SAI methodology include the following: 

• The new formula allows a minimum SAI of negative $1,500 to give more insight when making determinations for a student’s aid.
• The number of children in college is not considered in the SAI calculation.
• The formula reduces the number of data items and allowances against income, with untaxed income data items being removed from the FAFSA.
• Allowances (amounts subtracted) against assets will be based on the age of the older parent in two parent households.
• Annual child support received will now be an asset and reported based on the last complete calendar year. Which year is used will be based on when the FAFSA is completed. For example, if the FAFSA is completed in December 2023 when it opens, child support received would be reported from 2022 totals. But, if the FAFSA was completed in 2024, the child support received would be reported from 2023 totals.
• Business net worth will now be reported regardless of the size of the business.
• Family Farm net worth will now be reported, except for the part of the farm that is the family’s primary residence, which should be deducted from the total net worth (more guidance will be given by the Department of Education on this calculation with the 2024-2025 FAFSA directions).
• The applicant’s family size will be based on the tax data used for the FAFSA application and downloaded directly from the IRS. The Contributor will have the ability to update the family size if the number has changed since the tax year of the federal tax information (FTI) being downloaded. (Note: The tax information downloaded for each contributor will be based on the prior-prior tax year, which is consistent with the current practice. For 2024-2025, it would be two years back from the base year of 2024, which would be the 2022 tax year.) 
• The contributing parent providing consent for the tax data being used in the calculation has changed and is no longer the parent the student lives with most, but instead the parent who provides most financial support.  There will be a tool for the students to use through the process to determine which parent(s) should be invited as a contributor.