SAI Calculator 2026-27: Estimate Your Student Aid Index
Estimate the number that drives your federal aid, before you file. Estimate only, not financial aid advice.
Estimate your Student Aid Index
For a dependent student on the 2026-27 FAFSA. Use your family's 2024 tax return, because that is the year this FAFSA asks about. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
How the Student Aid Index is calculated
The formula runs in three parts and then adds them together. First it looks at your parents' income. It starts with their adjusted gross income and subtracts a set of allowances: the federal income tax they paid, a payroll tax allowance, an income protection allowance that rises with family size, and an employment expense allowance worth up to $5,000. What is left is called available income, and it can be negative.
Second it looks at your parents' assets. Savings, investments, and property they do not live in are added up and converted at 12 cents on the dollar. Retirement accounts and your family home never count. That result is added to available income, and the total runs through a rate schedule that rises from 22% to 47% to produce the parents' contribution.
Third it looks at the student. Student income above an allowance of $11,770 is assessed at 50%, and student assets are assessed at a flat 20%. Add the three pieces together and you have the SAI, floored at negative 1,500.
Every allowance and rate on this page comes from the official 2026-27 Student Aid Index and Pell Grant Eligibility Guide published by Federal Student Aid. The numbers change each award year, so a figure you read for a different year will not match.
What this estimator does not include
It covers Formula A, which applies to dependent students. That is the common case for a student going to college straight from high school. Independent students, and students with dependents of their own, use different formulas with different allowances.
It also leaves out parts of the official worksheet that most families do not have: business and farm net worth, untaxed income such as IRA and pension distributions, the foreign income exclusion, and offsets like taxable grant aid or federal work-study earnings. It does not apply the poverty-guideline shortcuts that can qualify a family for the maximum or minimum Pell Grant no matter what the calculated SAI says, which means a low-income family may qualify for more aid than the estimate shows.
None of that makes the estimate useless. For most families the number will land close, and knowing it early is the point. Your official SAI comes from filing the FAFSA at StudentAid.gov.
Frequently asked questions
Lower is better. A negative SAI, all the way down to negative 1,500, signals the deepest financial need and usually means the maximum Pell Grant. An SAI at or below zero generally qualifies for maximum Pell. Above roughly 7,395 a Pell Grant becomes unlikely, though loans and college aid are still available.
No. It is an index colleges use to measure eligibility, not a bill. Your actual cost depends on each school's cost of attendance and the aid package it offers. Two colleges can produce very different bills from the same SAI.
2024. The FAFSA uses income from two years before the award year, which is called prior-prior year. So the 2026-27 FAFSA asks about your 2024 tax return, and that is what this estimator expects.
Yes. That is new with the SAI and it could not happen with the old EFC. The floor is negative 1,500. A negative number is not an error, it is the formula recording that your family has need beyond the zero point.
No. The federal formula ignores retirement accounts like a 401(k) or IRA, and it ignores the home you live in. It does count cash, savings, investments held outside retirement accounts, and property you do not live in.
Because the formula assesses them at different rates. Parent assets convert at 12 cents on the dollar after allowances, while student assets convert at a flat 20 cents. Money in the student's name reduces aid faster than the same money in a parent's name.
It should be close if your inputs are accurate, but it will not always match exactly. The official formula also counts things this tool leaves out, such as untaxed income, business and farm net worth, and certain offsets. Treat this as a planning estimate, then file the FAFSA for the real number.
For 2026-27 the maximum Pell Grant is $7,395 and the minimum is $740. In the ordinary path your award is the maximum minus your SAI. There are also shortcuts based on family income against the federal poverty guidelines that can qualify a family for the maximum regardless of the calculated SAI.