<p>I know it seems far off, but planning to me is always the best solution.</p>
<p>In a couple of years, I will have a child going off to grad school while I have one still in undergrad.</p>
<p>My youngest will be applying to colleges next year. Say he is admitted to five schools, it may be nice to know that when my oldest graduates and heads to grad school, the school that my youngest was accepted to will take into consideration grad school costs of his older sibling. It could possibly tip the scale towards one school or another.</p>
<p>1) Which undergraduate schools account for a sibling in graduate school while calculating financial aid.</p>
<p>2) Which graduate schools account for a sibling in undergraduate school while calculating financial aid - if there is such a thing as FA in graduate school.</p>
<p>I would think that many undergrad schools will consider a grad student’s costs to be the responsibility of the grad student - not the family. So, some/many undergrads won’t care.</p>
<p>As I understand it, the FA system is set up with the idea that parents are responsible for undergrad, and grad students are “independent” and their costs are their responsiblity (thru loans, merit, personal funds).</p>
<p>Traditionally, an undergrad isn’t going to give you more money because you’ve chosen to help with your older child’s grad school costs. </p>
<p>However, there may be some well-endowed schools that might take that into consideration.</p>
<p>As for grad schools…hmmm…since a grad student applies for aid as an independent, he/she would not be listing younger siblings. </p>
<p>Graduate schools seldom (never?) consider an undergrad sib simply because they are usually looking at FA in terms of the grad student being an independent student. </p>
<p>FA for graduate school works differently than FA for undergrad. Grad students are considered independent on FAFSA so family financial data isn’t asked for. </p>
<p>Grad students can borrow up to $20,500/year (with up to $8500/yr being subsidized) in Stafford loans. The cumulative max for Staffords is $138,500 over 3-5 years.</p>
<p>In addition, Grad Plus loans are available for up to the cost of attendance less any financial aid offered.</p>
<p>Most grad school FA comes from the graduate department itself in the form of teaching assistantships (TA), research assistantships (RA), fellowships and grants. Engineering and the sciences usually have funding to support grad students; humanities and social sciences usually don’t–though that will vary by school and the desirability of the student.</p>
<p>FA for professional school (medical, law, etc) is different yet again with little FA available except for federal and private loans. And many private professional school programs will ask for and expect a family contribution even if the student is older (e.g. 28-30) and clearly financially independent. If a family financial contribution is expected, consideration is made for a sib in college, but each school computes family data differently so it’s hard to make a generalization.</p>
<p>It varies. Some schools will and some schools won’t. If this is to be considered at all, you (the parents) must continue to provide more than 1/2 of the grad school student’s support in order to list them as a “member of your household”. If they are then pursuing a degree, you can count them as well on the FAFSA…but some schools will NOT continue to allow grad students in the count…others will.</p>
<p>You need to check with the undergrad schools. Our daughter’s undergrad school DID count her brother in the head count of kids attending college when the brother was in grad school. That helped with HER financial aid.</p>
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<p>My daughter’s school is NOT amongst the very well endowed schools. This was just their policy.</p>
<p>Grad school students are considered independent for financial aid purposes. Their siblings cannot be listed on their FAFSA forms (unless the grad student is the legal guardian for the sibling and is paying their support).</p>
<p>When D2 was choosing schools, I called all the finaid depts, for example, Berkeley did allow us to count a grad student in the # of students in university, UVA did not. It may be a changeable item, so I would call and check. I did this after my DD was admitted, but you could even check before.</p>
<p>When your graduate student is applying, be sure to file the FAFSA early as you would for undergrad. Your student could be eligible for work study in addition to the loans & possible tuition remission if they work as a T. Work study funds are limited and given away to kids who file before the priority deadline</p>
<p>I have done a little bit of research on this today. It confirmed what Thumper1 said above. It looks like ALOT of the colleges have a form that needs to be filled out if a sibling is in college. However, the majority of those schools do not consider a graduate student as an eligible family member to be listed as another family member in college.</p>
<p>“Not eligible family member” - “A sibling who is enrolled as a graduate student, or who is otherwise considered to be independent for federal financial aid purposes”</p>
<p>Saw that exact line on many of the forms.</p>
<p>And I absolutely will call. Can’t hurt to ask the 5-6 colleges my son gets into next year.</p>
<p>Do call the schools. This was an important question for us too…and the schools that said NO to counting grad school son were lowered on the list for DD.</p>
<p>The other thing to ask is if your child’s aid is guaranteed in anyway. It turned out that our DD also got the same grant package her senior year when her brother was NOT a student. When she went in to talk to them, she found out that her particular school grant was a combo merit/need and if she kept her GPA (which she did) she would continue to get the grant…whew. She also continued to get work study and the Stafford loan she took out was subsidized.</p>
<p>Is there anything specific/definitive stated in the FAFSA and/or PROFILE instructions on this? I remember researching this and not seeing instructions that were clear on this. I vaguely recall that the Kalman Chaney book says that grad student siblings are included as “in college” on undergads’ FA forms…</p>
<p>There is a question about number of members in your household. IF you are providing more than half of the support for your grad school kiddo, you can say YES to that one. </p>
<p>Then there is a question about the number in the household pursuing a degree program (grad school is considered). You can include the dependent student in that too.</p>
<p>BUT buyer beware…the COLLEGE will likely want you to verify your sibling’s college enrollment and some COLLEGES will count the grad school kiddo and others will not.</p>
<p>I haven’t done a Profile in a few years, but my recollection is the same questions are there.</p>
<p>I’d just like to add that as a graduate student, some health professional programs (medical schools, dental schools, pharmacy schools, etc.) require the parents’ financial information until an older age than the FAFSA. So while the independent student’s FAFSA won’t require the financial information - some schools will. For instance, I applied to an MPH program at Yale and when I was admitted, they sent me a form that said I was considered dependent for THEIR purposes until I was 26 years old, regardless of the fact that I was a graduate student. (That’s ridiculous, IMO!) I know that a lot of medical schools are doing this now.</p>
<p>I think Kalman Chany does discuss the medical school, dental school, pharmacy school, law school thing in his book, “Paying for College Without Going Broke” that indeed, these type of schools may ask ask for the parents’ financial info & yes, kids would be considered dependent, not independent! Kind of a rude awakening for some parents, to be sure, thinking that they are all “done” & their child is independent!</p>
<p>I remember Marist saying they would count my son in grad school (and it showed in scholarships/aid) and a few others, I had a list at the time. Some spell it out, some not.
My son is a full time grad student now and living home so I am hoping he will be considered since we are helping him by taking care of his expenses at home, he took out a loan and works part time (under 20 hours) for school.
He does his own fafsa, but the CSS asks about grad school in the "number in college
so for now I put 3…sent them an email and will see what they say.
That said, colleges can always ignore it.</p>
<p>Re. parent info for pharmacy, med, dental…IIRC, there is at least one federal loan program for grad students, the Health Professions Student Loan, that requires parent info. As with Perkins, not all schools have HPSL, so that may be one of the reasons these programs require parent info. It does not affect the FAFSA EFC for the grad student though.</p>