I signed my award letter on the first day of the semester (and the loan funds were available a week later) However, it took my school 2 months to actually release the funds to my account. After a lot of back and forth, they told me that I needed to file a SAP petition (I had been told before, during and after signing the award letter that there was nothing else needed...and I asked specifically) I did the petition as soon as the told me a needed to and it was approved, but shouldn't that have been done before the award letter was issued?

It ended up taking 2 months for everything to get resolved. It really affected my academic performance for the semester (I got evicted as a result) and is now impacting my financial aid situation as well.

I feel like the financial aid office made a lot of mistakes, but it seems like I don’t have any recourse.

Are there federal guidelines that schools have to comply with?

You can definitely take any financial aid disputes to the Department of Education's office of Ombudsman. They try to resolve financial aid disputes from a neutral standpoint.