The Student Aid Index, or SAI, is a number that represents your family’s financial strength and ability to pay for college, and helps to determine how much financial aid you’re eligible to receive. Calculate your SAI with MEFA’s SAI Calculator.
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[00:00:00] If you’re applying for financial aid, you may have seen the term S-A-I. SAI stands for Student Aid Index, and it’s a number that’s determined by a federal formula using the information from your FAFSA. Once you complete the FAFSA by entering the relevant income and asset information from all parties, your student aid index will be presented to you on the last screen.
This is the amount that’s supposed to represent your family’s financial strength. Ability to pay for college. Now, it’s important to note that the SAI itself is not necessarily what you’ll pay for college. Rather, it determines how much aid you can receive. So let me explain that a little bit. Let’s say, for example, your college costs $50,000 and your student aid index is $10,000.
That means you’re eligible for the difference of those numbers in need-based financial aid. In this case, $40,000. You’re not guaranteed to receive every [00:01:00] dollar that you’re eligible for. That’s often up to the college and frankly, it’s more common to not receive all of the aid for which you’re eligible.
But a low SAI is still a good thing because it means you may qualify for more financial aid. To find out your SAI visit the SAI calculator on mifa.org.
