What Is SAI and What Does It Mean?

The 2027-2028 FAFSA is now open and millions of families are going through the steps to complete the online application and are receiving their SAI number and asking: “What does that mean???”

SAI is the Student Aid Index and is formula-based number that is used to determine how much federal and institutional need-based aid a student is eligible for. The number can be  anywhere between -1500 and 999,999.  People often think they have made a mistake or there is an error when they see a negative SAI number, but a negative number is just used to identify students who are eligible for the maximum amount of aid.

 Now What?

A common thing that I see across various college Facebook groups this time of year is parents posting “our SAI is XXXX, is that good or bad?”.  Or “our SAI is XXXX, do they really expect us to be able to pay that amount each year?”   Here are few things to understand about the SAI number:

1.  Your SAI number is not how much your family will pay for college. It is just a metric used to determine eligibility for need based aid.  There are many other factors that will determine the net price you end up paying for college.

2. For many families, aside from learning if you are eligible for the Pell Grant, the SAI index won’t initially tell you anything about the amount of aid you will receive from the colleges you are applying to.  If your SAI index is above $7,395 then you won’t be Pell Grant eligible.

3.  Every student regardless of their family SAI number is eligible for the Federal Direct Loan.

How Is SAI Used?

Colleges use the SAI number to calculate need by subtracting it from the total Cost of Attendance (COA) which is tuition, room and board, feed, etc.   This determines the amount of financial need a student has, but it doesn’t mean that is the amount of aid they will necessarily receive.

College COA:   $75,000- $25,000 SAI = $50,000 of need

 There are many other factors that will determine how much need based and even non-need-based aid that a student receives and ultimately how much they need to pay to attend college.  Does the college require the CSS Profile form?  Does the college meet demonstrated need at 100%?  Is the student eligible for merit aid?  These are all factors that will impact the final net price that a family pays for college so don’t panic when you initially receive your SAI number. Know that it is just the starting point for determining that net price.