The 2027-28 FAFSA opens October 1, 2026, using income and tax information from the 2025 tax year — the standard one-year lag the form has always used. What's changed more than the calendar is the underlying formula: the number families spent decades calling their "EFC" was replaced by the Student Aid Index (SAI) starting with the 2024-25 form, and the replacement isn't just a rename.
The single biggest formula change: no more dividing by kids in college
Under the old EFC formula, a family's contribution was divided by the number of children simultaneously enrolled in college — send two kids at once and each one's calculated contribution was roughly cut in half. The FAFSA Simplification Act eliminated that divisor entirely starting with the 2024-25 form. The FAFSA still asks how many family members are in college, but the number no longer changes the math. Families with multiple kids in school at once will generally see a higher calculated contribution per student than the old formula would have produced.
How the SAI formula actually works
SAI = parent contribution (from income and assets) + student contribution from income + student contribution from assets. For a dependent student, parent income runs through a progressive bracket schedule applied to "Adjusted Available Income" (AAI) — total income minus taxes, an income protection allowance based on household size, plus a percentage of countable assets. The 2026-27 brackets: below -$8,500 AAI, a flat -$1,870; -$8,500 to $21,800, 22% of AAI; up through $43,900+, where the marginal rate reaches 47%. Student income above an $11,770 protection allowance is assessed at 50%, and student assets at a flat 20% — both meaningfully higher rates than what applies to parent assets (5.64%), which is the standard reasoning behind advice to keep savings in a parent's name rather than a student's when possible.
Parent asset protection dropped to zero
One change worth knowing if you've filled out a FAFSA before 2026-27: the asset protection allowance that used to shelter a slice of parent net worth from assessment, based on the older parent's age, has been reduced to $0 across the board. Every dollar of countable parent assets (savings, investments, and similar — retirement accounts and home equity remain excluded) now factors into the calculation, whereas older formulas exempted some amount depending on parental age.
SAI can go negative now
Another change from the EFC era: SAI has a floor of -$1,500 rather than 0. A student with a -$1,500 SAI and one with a 0 SAI are treated identically for Pell Grant eligibility purposes — both signal maximum financial need — but the negative range gives schools slightly more resolution when comparing very-low-income applicants against each other for other forms of aid.
Estimating your own SAI before you file
The official calculation involves actual tax return data, precise household-size-indexed allowance tables, and an employment expense allowance this article hasn't covered — more moving parts than a rough advance estimate can practically replicate. A simplified version, built on the real bracket structure and the confirmed student assessment rates above, can still give a useful ballpark: it just won't match the number on your actual Student Aid Report to the dollar, particularly if your household size differs from four (the only size for which we could confirm the exact income protection allowance figure) or if a precise tax calculation would meaningfully change your available income. Treat any pre-filing estimate, including a simplified one, as a planning tool — not a substitute for submitting the real form at studentaid.gov.
Try the FAFSA 2027-28 SAI Estimator →
Sources: Forbes, "Education Department Opens 2027-28 FAFSA Beta to All Families" (2026-09-09); Federal Student Aid, "How is the Student Aid Index (SAI) calculated?" (studentaid.gov); 2026-27 parent contribution bracket schedule and student assessment rates, cross-referenced across multiple FAFSA-calculator reference sites citing the FSA Partners "2026-27 Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide"; FAFSA Simplification Act summaries via MATC, SFSU and ECSU financial aid offices, on the removal of the number-in-college divisor and the -$1,500 SAI floor.