FAFSA, SAI and Pell Grant · guide
FAFSA calculator: what the form will work out for you
The FAFSA turns your answers into a Student Aid Index and a Pell Grant determination; everything else in a financial aid offer is built on those two results. For the 2026-27 school year the form reads income from the 2024 federal tax return, the prior-prior year, and assets as of the day you file. A dependent student with married parents earning $68,000, a household of four and $9,000 in savings would see an SAI near 2,481 if the parents paid about $2,720 of federal income tax, which points to a Pell Grant of about $4,914 for full-time study. The 2027-28 FAFSA opened on September 23, 2026, the earliest launch the Department of Education has ever announced, and it asks for 2025 income. The quick estimate below uses three inputs; the full SAI worksheet adds tax paid, student earnings and independent-student cases. Treat any figure here as a planning number: the official index appears on your FAFSA Submission Summary after the Department processes the form.
A first FAFSA estimate from three figures
Estimated Student Aid Index
3,080
| Pell Grant, full time | $4,315 |
| Counted from savings | $1,080 |
| AGI line for the maximum award | $54,600 |
Married parents, all income from work, federal income tax paid left at zero, so the index leans high.
The FAFSA does not hand out money by itself. It produces one number, the Student Aid Index, and a Pell decision. You can estimate both before you file.
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What the form actually produces
People search for a FAFSA calculator expecting a dollar amount of aid. The form does not produce one. After you submit, the Department of Education runs your answers through the need analysis formula and sends back a Student Aid Index, a Pell Grant eligibility result and a set of flags for the schools you listed. Each college then takes the index, subtracts it from its own cost of attendance and decides how much of the gap it can fill with grants, work-study and federal loans. Two families with the same SAI can therefore receive very different offers from two colleges, while the federal Pell Grant stays the same at any school for the same enrollment.
So the useful estimate before filing has two parts: the index, and the Pell Grant it implies. Everything else on an offer letter depends on the school's budget and policies. The SAI calculator reproduces the worksheet line by line, and the Pell Grant calculator turns the index into an award. The mini-estimate at the top of this page gives a first figure with only three inputs, which is enough to know which range you are in.
Which year of income goes on the form
Every FAFSA looks back two tax years. The 2026-27 form, the one students in college this school year filed, uses the 2024 federal return and the 2024 HHS poverty guidelines, $15,060 for one person plus $5,380 for each extra person in the 48 states and DC. The 2027-28 form, which opened on September 23, 2026, uses 2025 income. Secretary McMahon certified on August 25, 2026 that the form would open on time, and the FAFSA Deadline Act now requires a launch by October 1 each year (Department of Education, September 23, 2026).
That two-year lag matters in both directions. A parent who lost a job in 2025 still shows the full 2024 salary on the 2026-27 form, and the right move is a written request to each college's aid office for a review of the change. A parent whose pay jumped last year benefits from the delay for one more cycle. The tables behind the 2026-27 index are fixed; the 2027-28 tables are published separately and this site will switch to them once they are final, so estimates for next year made here are a guide rather than a forecast.
Four households run through the estimate
To show how quickly the index climbs with income, the table applies the 2026-27 formula to a dependent student whose married parents have a household of four, no student income, federal tax paid of about 4% of AGI and savings that grow with income.
| Parents’ AGI | Savings | SAI | Pell, full time |
|---|---|---|---|
| $43,000 | $3,000 | -1,500 | $7,395 |
| $62,000 | $7,000 | 1,262 | $6,133 |
| $86,000 | $18,000 | 6,450 | $945 |
| $131,000 | $35,000 | 24,164 | $0 |
The first family sits under the maximum-Pell income line for four people, $54,600, so its index is capped at zero or below and the student receives the full $7,395. The second and third families fall in the sliding zone where Pell equals the maximum minus the index. The fourth family is past the cut-off the 2025 law added: an index of 14,790 or more blocks Pell entirely, whatever the income lines say. That family's index still matters, because colleges use it to size their own grants and federal subsidized loans.
The inputs that move the number most
Parents' income dominates the formula, but three other inputs are worth getting right. Federal income tax paid is subtracted in full before anything is assessed, so leaving it out inflates the result: the same $68,000 family has an index of 3,080 with tax at zero and 2,481 with $2,720 of tax. Household size raises the income protection allowance, $36,330 for three people and $44,880 for four, so counting every person the parents support is worth the care.
Student earnings come next. Money the student earned is protected up to $11,770 after taxes; half of anything above that is added to the index. A student in the same family who earned $16,000 in 2024 pushes the index from 2,481 to 3,984. That is often the surprise in a family that did everything else right, and it is why summer earnings in the base year deserve a look before filing.
Assets play a smaller role than many parents fear. With no asset protection allowance at any age in 2026-27, 12% of reportable savings is added to available income, and then only part of that flows into the index through the assessment rates of 22% to 47%. Ten thousand dollars of savings typically moves the index by a few hundred points, not thousands.
From an index to an offer letter
Once the index exists, each college applies a simple identity: cost of attendance minus SAI minus other aid equals remaining need. The Pell Grant is set by the index and the income lines alone, so it travels with the student from school to school. Subsidized loans, work-study and the college's own grants are sized against the remaining need, and the last of those follows each college's own rules and budget. The net price calculator page covers how to compare offers once they arrive.
When the offers come in, read the Pell line first. It should match the estimate here within rounding for full-time study; if it is lower, check whether the school assumed part-time enrollment. Then look at what is a grant and what is a loan. A loan listed in the offer is an option you can decline or reduce, and its cost follows the federal rules on the loan limits page.
Before you open the form
Gather the 2024 federal returns for the student and each parent who must contribute, the balances of savings and investment accounts on the day you file, and the number of people in the household. Each contributor needs a StudentAid.gov account and gives consent for the IRS to share tax data with the form. According to the Department, the 2027-28 form can be finished in as little as 15 minutes, contributors can now be invited by text message as well as email, and applicants see a Pell result in real time. Those are the Department's own descriptions; your time will depend on how many contributors your form needs. The full method, with every table the estimate uses, is in the FSA SAI and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide and on the method page.