<p>My son just got accepted to grad school with a puny (15%) merit award and assistant ship (also15%). I'd like to ask the school if they could do better with the merit aid. School considers him independent on the FAFSA. His EFC is 0. I am a single mother with 2 other kids in college and am not equipped to help him out too much. </p>
<p>I would have a tough time convincing him that it's ok for him to make the phone call to ask for more money. If I can't convince him, is it ok for me to call the financial aid office.? Do you think my plea will be successful based on the above?</p>
<p>Thanks for any advice </p>
<p>For a grad student? No, I don’t think it’s acceptable for a parent to call. </p>
<p>Your S is a college graduate. Time for him to stand on his own two feet. </p>
<p>Ok got it. Can you please address the second question. </p>
<p>Your circumstances do not change anything, because graduate schools do not expect families to contribute.</p>
<p>I understand that, but can’t he ask for more money since his EFC is 0?</p>
<p>He can ask, but he shouldn’t be surprised if the answer is no. Virtually all aid for grad students is merit based. Some comes in the form of grants and fellowships, some in the form of assistantships. For an assistantship, you have to do some sort of work, but the offer still comes based on your academic record and so on.</p>
<p>I don’t know everything. There may be exceptions, but I’ve never heard of any.</p>
<p>Good heavens, the grad student should be advocating by now. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I just emailed my grad school, asked for more help and they bumped me up to the next scholarship category. </p>
<p>They don’t care about parent situations because grad students are independent. 30% for a master’s is pretty good.</p>
<p>nearly ALL grad students have a 0 EFC…they’re all poor cuz they don’t have jobs. lol Most are coming right from undergrad. So, they mostly all have a 0 EFC…I know my son did.</p>
<p>For grad students, funding doesn’t usually come from a FA office, it comes from the dept which decides what it can fund. </p>
<p>If this is for a masters, then he’s lucky to have gotten anything. Often only PhDs are funded.</p>
<p>Thanks all. Didn’t realize that aid for grad school is mostly merit based and that the department is responsible for parceling out the award. This is for a PhD. </p>
<p>Yes, aid is merit-based. EFC doesn’t matter since they’re nearly all low/no income.</p>
<p>Usually PhD programs are funded. Don’t know why this one isn’t. What is the major/discipline? Some depts don’t have much money.</p>
<p>Either way, you can’t call. I doubt they’d even speak to you. Your son is an adult, and independent adult and this is all on him. How does HE expect to pay for this?</p>
<p>PhD programs can be 5-7 years long…does he plan on borrowing? That’s too much debt…especially if the resulting career will not be ridiculously highly paid. </p>
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I would have a tough time convincing him that it’s ok for him to make the phone call to ask for more money.
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<p>I hope he hasn’t accepted yet. He should certainly ask for more money, and he should WAIT until the last day to make his decision. When my son went thru this, he didn’t decide til the end, and his schools kept calling with increased offers. All had included tuition already, but some stipends were modest, and they all ended up increasing stipends to about $30k per year in addition to tuition. However, my son had a perfect GPA and high GRE’s 800Q 770V and a very high Math subject.</p>
<p>So, at least keep them guessing as to whether he’ll enroll.</p>
<p>What discipline is this, BTW? For some departments, zero or partial funding is the norm. For others, it’s a “polite” way of saying, “We don’t think you’re talented enough for a career in academe.” E.g., no one should ever have to get a PhD in English without full funding.</p>
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<p>Any PhD that isn’t fully funded isn’t worth it. </p>
<p>A PHD that isn’t fully funded isn’t worth doing because it won’t lead to any job. Your son needs to work while taking <em>one</em> upper-level or graduate-level class at a reputable research university, <em>as a non degree student</em>, to beef up his resume, prep for the GRE, and apply to programs where he’s likely to get full funding.</p>
<p>I would encourage him to make an account and post a bit of info on the grad school forum and get feedback and discuss options. While that offer would be very good for a Master’s (few are funded), It is a tough situation for PhD. If he is just getting out of undergrad, they may only be offering him part funding for that phase and if he is continuing to impress he may be eligible to get funded after the Masters and qualifying exams, no guarantees of course. There are programs that just accept PhD and you have to fund own masters.</p>
<p>I have to say that my daughter didn’t get funding from one prominent university, but did have offers from two equally prominent universities. So it is a good thing she applied widely. Of course she called about it but the prof said it was state budget related and they were in despair as well. It happens a bit more lately, I see it in results search even in a field where funding is expected.</p>
<p>Otherwise students take out loans to cover Masters. People in some fields like engineering or CS do it all the time with good prospects. Otherwise one must be careful.</p>
<p>Whatever happens, don’t call for him, that is just not done. Let the grad school forum convince him , he may not think mom has enough knowledge on the subject. Honestly if he can’t even do that, how will he manage to self advocate through a program?</p>
<p>This is for a PhD in Physical therapy. </p>
<p>I’m going to split hairs here. For those of us on the ground, it seems nit-picky. For folks in academia, the difference in huge. A doctor of physical therapy degree is a DPT, not a PhD. It is a professional degree, not a doctorate. Students are being trained for a career. Students holding a DPT typically do not write a dissertation and so do not earn a doctorate. Why does it matter? Funding. An institution benefits from the research and research support of its doctoral candidates. It would be most unusual indeed for a professional degree to be fully or mostly funded. Students in programs like these. (Think of all the other degrees with the title “doctor” in them that aren’t doctorates–DNP, MD, JD, DVM, DDS, etc) typically borrow heavily for their educations. The payoff is that the jobs have generous salaries allowing the students to pay back the loans.</p>
<p>Truthfully, as a grad student, his EFC doesn’t mean much. MANY grad students have a $0 EFC. Grad programs typically do not award aid based on need. Grad aid is merit based and is based on the strength of your son’s application. He got 30% aid which is really nice. In most cases, students should be attending fully funded PhD programs. But some disciplines do NOT offer full funding. What is the field of study?</p>
<p>D1 is a recent DPT grad. We also students in DPT programs from schools other than the one she graduated from and they also reported similar policies about merit awards. Very few students received any type of merit scholarships- the reward for an excellent academic background is acceptance into the program lol. Your son is quite fortunate to have received merit aid; he will not have as much debt as many of his classmates.</p>