What is a good SAI number? Five example families for 2027–28

There is no good SAI number, only a good fit between your Student Aid Index and what a college costs. A lower SAI means more need-based aid, and it can go no lower than −1,500.

Here is the test. Subtract the SAI from a college's cost of attendance, and what is left is your financial need before other aid. A hypothetical family with an SAI of 12,000 has $18,000 of need at a hypothetical $30,000 college and $3,000 at a hypothetical $15,000 one. Same number, two very different pictures.

Pell Grants are the one place where the SAI has a hard cut-off. The five example families below show where those cut-offs land. Every figure here is an estimate for the 2027–28 award year, not an aid award.

What does your SAI actually tell you?

It tells a college how much need-based aid to consider you for. It is not a bill: the College Board says it is not the amount your family is expected to pay. The 2027–28 FAFSA puts it this way: "The SAI measures your family's financial strength and is used to determine your eligibility for federal student aid." The same form adds that "The college will use your SAI to prepare a financial aid package to help you meet your financial need."

How do you judge an SAI against a particular college?

Read across a row. The table fixes three hypothetical colleges and tries three SAIs on each.

An SAI of 12,000 leaves a big gap at the higher-cost college and a small one at the lower-cost college. An SAI of 40,000 leaves no federal need at two of the three. Your SAI never changes between colleges; the cost does. So the useful question is not "is my number good?" but "which colleges on my list leave a gap, and how big?"

A gap is not a promise to cover it, and a high SAI is not the end of the road. The FAFSA form notes that "most states and colleges use information from the FAFSA form to award nonfederal aid."

What do five example families' SAIs look like?

These are worked examples, not real households. Each was run through Rapunzl's FAFSA SAI and Pell Grant Estimator for 2027–28, and every result is an estimate. All five share one setup:

• Dependent student, household of 4, parents married and filing a federal tax return.
• A contiguous U.S. state (the 48 states and D.C.).
• The student has no income or savings.
• Income tax paid left at $0, except in the last row.
• Full-time, full-year undergraduate.

As of October 2026, the 2027–28 Pell Grant dollar amounts haven't been announced, so the Pell column uses the 2026–27 maximum of $7,395 and minimum of $740. Who qualifies follows the 2027–28 rules.

Look at family C's two rows. Same income, same savings; the only change is $6,000 of income tax paid, and the estimate moves from no Pell to a small one. Whatever estimator you use, fill in that line.

How is the SAI calculated?

For a dependent student, the Department of Education's (ED's) 2027–28 guide uses "Formula A." It starts with parent income from the 2025 tax year, subtracts allowances, adds a share of parent assets, then adds the student's own contribution. A calculated SAI below −1,500 is replaced with −1,500.

Here is family B's arithmetic as a worked example. The family's figures are illustrations; the allowances come from the guide. Treat all $60,000 of AGI as wages. Subtract a $4,590 payroll tax allowance (7.65%), the guide's $46,590 income protection allowance for a household of 4 and a $5,200 employment expense allowance (the lesser of 35% of work income or $5,200), and $3,620 is left. Add 12% of the $8,000 in parent savings, which is $960, and the adjusted available income is $4,580. For an adjusted available income up to $22,600, the guide's Table A5 takes 22%, so the parents' contribution is $1,007.60. With no student income or savings, the SAI rounds to 1,008.

Some families never report assets at all. Under 20 U.S.C. § 1087ss, a dependent student's parents are exempt when their adjusted gross income is less than $60,000, they file no Schedule A, B, D, E, F or H, and any Schedule C shows no more than a $10,000 gain or loss. Receiving a means-tested federal benefit in the previous 24 months is another route to the exemption.

How do the Pell Grant cut-offs work?

Pell is decided three ways, and the SAI matters in only one of them.

Maximum Pell. For a dependent student, ED's 2027–28 guide gives the maximum award when the parents did not file a federal tax return, when a single parent's AGI is at or below 225% of the poverty guideline, or when parents who are not single have AGI at or below 175%. For these students, the SAI is not used to set the amount of that grant. That's family A. The thresholds start from the 2025 HHS poverty guideline of $32,150 for a household of 4. The guide says to use the prior-prior year's guidelines for 2027–28. At 175% that is $56,263; at 275%, $88,413.

SAI-based Pell. Everyone else starts here. The award is determined by subtracting the student's calculated SAI from the annual published maximum Pell Grant amount, rounded to the nearest $5. If the result is under the minimum, the student is ineligible for an SAI-calculated Pell Grant. With 2026–27 amounts, that means an SAI of about 6,655 or lower ($7,395 minus $740). Family B lands here.

Minimum Pell. A student who misses the SAI-based award can still get the minimum through an income test. For a dependent student whose parent is not single, parent AGI must be at or below 275% of the poverty guideline; for a single parent, 325%. There's a second condition: under the 2026–27 Pell letter, a student whose SAI is at or above twice the maximum Pell award ($14,790 with 2026–27 amounts) gets no Pell at all, so a family under the income line but with large assets can still miss out. Family C's $90,000 sits just above the $88,413 line, which is why it gets nothing rather than $740.

What should you do with your SAI next?

Get an estimate, then do the subtraction for every college on your list. The Federal Student Aid Estimator on studentaid.gov is the official starting point, and the colleges' own aid offices have the final say on what a gap turns into.

Then line up the paperwork. FAFSA for parents covers what you sign and when it's due, and if your school hosts a FAFSA night, what to bring is worth a look before you go. If a college on your list asks for the CSS Profile, CSS Profile vs FAFSA explains how the two forms differ. To start a scholarship search alongside the aid forms, try the scholarship guide for parents.

Students can also meet the vocabulary before they meet the form. Rapunzl's Paying for College module covers FAFSA and student loans for grades 9 to 12.

If you would like your student to learn cost of attendance, need and aid before the FAFSA arrives, see how Rapunzl works for families.

By Nate Thomas, School Partnerships Lead at Rapunzl.