<p>Parental income is still considered at most of my D’s school list for institutional aid. Married doesn’t change that from what I’ve seen. FWIW “truly independent” or even “really truly independent” is not a criteria that matters a whit.</p>
<p>bdm has it right.</p>
<p>I have a few classmates in their 30’s, both married and single. They still have to dial up their parents every spring to get their tax information so they can file for financial aid. It seems ridiculous, but that’s the way the system works.</p>
<p>That’s different than I expected - I thought it stopped at 30.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For federal financial aid, all medical students are “independant”, regardless of age or marital status. The feds don’t care about parental income for graduate students. However, for school-specific forms of aid, most schools want parent info.</p>
<p>^Right. Technically, we are all supposed to be independent, whether or not we’re married, by virtue of the fact we’re grad students. However, in order to qualify for any institutional aid (ie grants), you’ll have to report parental information and that information will be counted against your FA. So, to receive grants, you must be poor, your parents must be poor, and the medical school must have money to give. Hence, most med students don’t receive much in the way of grants.</p>
<p>Yep. That’s how I understand it. Some schools state this explicitly. 'You don’t have to submit parent data but if you don’t , we will not even consider you for OUR discretionary money. FAQ- Cuz we don’t have to, that’s why. " ;)</p>
<p>So one can interpret all this in the following way:</p>
<ol>
<li> You’re rich, can afford medical school and become a doctor.</li>
<li> You’re poor, get financial aid and become a doctor.</li>
<li> You’re extremely dedicated and don’t care that you could be 100’s of thousands in debt. This would mainly apply to the middle class however that is defined.</li>
</ol>
<p>These seem to be the options even though for all three cases, your earning power will be the same. Am I mistaken in this??</p>
<p>Even if you’re poor, don’t expect a full ride or anything. Med schools simply don’t have that kind of money. You’ll essentially be taking out massive amounts of loans if you’re poor or in the middle class or even bottom of the upper class. Very very few med students will graduate debt free. Medical school is an investment.</p>
<p>There are medical schools that do provide a full ride if your parents income is below a certain amount although they are difficult to get into.</p>
<p>DocT, would you name the ones you are aware of? I am very interested in your findings.</p>
<p>The ones I’m familiar with so far all work on the concept of a “unit loan” that all students take out prior to institutional funds being awarded.
Here’s Stanford
Here’s Yale.
I have this data for most of my D’s schools.</h1>
<p>I guess I’m pretty confused on this:</p>
<p>HMS Dean Jeffrey Flier remains committed to taking steps to reduce the cost of a four-year medical education. Parents with incomes of $120,000 or less with assets typical for those income levels are no longer expected to contribute to the cost of their children attending HMS. In addition, this initiative eliminates from the family income calculation typical before-tax retirement savings.</p>
<p>We’re neophytes on this stuff. I haven’t in the past had to worry about financial aid, we have never qualified and have paid full freight. However at this stage, we’re not about to pay for medical school also.</p>
<p>Therefore I am trying to understand what impact parental income has. It’s almost getting to the point where if my kid can get more financial aid if I retire, I will. This is especially the case if we have to cosign loans. So please - any info you have on this, let me know.</p>
<p>DocT: It means that the school will offer you loans worth full-tuition.</p>
<p>So what is the advantage of that? So what kind of financial aid package does Harvard have when they say that for parental income below 120k , there isn’t a parental contribution?</p>
<p>Not much. Instead of asking for (say) $15K in parental contributions and “awarding” you $50K in loans, they’ll award you $65K in loans.</p>
<p>There seems to be some differences here:</p>
<p>Example I (First-Year Student)
Standard Budget: $ 66,600
less Family Contribution $ 23,600
Financial Need $ 43,000
Award
HMS Scholarship $ 18,500
Federal Stafford Loan $ 8,500
Federal Perkins Loan $ 5,000
HMS Loan $ 11,000
TOTAL AID $ 43,000</p>
<p>Example II (Third-Year Student)
Standard Budget: $ 70,860
less Family Contribution $ 15,000
Financial Need $ 55,860
Award:
HMS Scholarship $ 31,360
Federal Stafford Loan $ 8,500
Federal Perkins Loan $ 5,000
HMS Loan $ 11,000
TOTAL AID $ 55,860</p>
<p>Example III (Fifth-Year Student)
Standard Budget $ 29,000
less Family Contribution $ 7,000
Financial Need $ 22,000
Award:
Federal Stafford Loan $ 8,500
Federal Perkins Loan $ 5,000
HMS Loan $ 11,000
TOTAL AID $ 24,500</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The deal for Example II seems to be much better. I would think the family for the Example II is much poorer than that for Example I.</p>
<p>I only have had some limited experience with the financial aids package for undergraduate students. For a family with the income you mentioned (120K, assuming that 120K is the total income, rather than AGI that is at the bottom on the first page of 1040), the student may be getting $31,360 institution scholarship award. But the total budget for an undergraduate student is about $50,000 - $52,000 per year rather than $66,600 - $70,860 per year.</p>
<p>At the undergraduate level, whether a student is awarded with a scholarship by the institution seems to have nothing to do with the merit of the student, even though it is called “Scholarship”. I would guess the scholarship awarded by a MS is merit-based, and there are very few scholarship awarded by MS.</p>
<p>I knew nothing about the financial package for a MS student though. I only heard that it is much worse.</p>
<p>
Cost has always been a “driver” in any educational process for my D. Med school will be no different. But unlike UG, policies like HMS’s that you quoted will mean that for my D (and many kids) that school is not automatically off-limits. Loans (without co-signors) will be available should she choose to avail herself of them. Not so in UG. Does it put the kid on equal-footing with those that can write a check? No. Not hardly. But it’s good enough to put them on her list. </p>
<p>As a matter of fact, her list can be divided into 2 camps :</p>
<p>I. Very affordable schools
<p>II. Very generous FA schools</p>
<p>She has no high-cost/low-FA schools on her list. </p>
<p>Maybe economics is one reason I am so “overly involved”.</p>
<p>Hm, HMS appears to have some kind of indebtedness cap. This is extremely rare among medical schools.</p>