Setting up an FSA ID

Your FSA ID is the username and password for your StudentAid.gov account. You use it to sign the FAFSA, check your loans and accept federal aid.

Making the account

Create it at studentaid.gov with your Social Security number, your date of birth, and an email address or mobile number you check. The government matches your details with the Social Security Administration, which can take a few days, so make the account before you need it.

Choose an email address you will keep after high school or after leaving a job. Messages about your aid go there for years.

What to do

• Make the account a few days before you plan to file
• Use an email address you will keep
• One account for each person on the form
• Never give your password to anyone

One account per person

Anyone who has to give information on your FAFSA, such as a parent or a spouse, needs an account of their own. A parent cannot use the student’s account, and the student cannot use a parent’s.

Nobody legitimate will ever ask for your FSA ID password, and that includes us.

Keeping it to yourself

Your FSA ID works as a legal signature. Do not share it with a school, a counselor, a friend or a company offering to help, including this one. Anyone helping you can sit beside you while you type it.