<p>Okay, I need the basic info on med school financing. I have read, re-read, and then read again till my eyes are red, and still don't have a clue how it works. I know parents and students submit forms, but how are the FA awards dictated? If someone (me) has a low EFC, does a med school student still get need based aid? Or is it strictly merit based? Or maybe based if the moon is purple that day? I am clueless, so please fill me in.</p>
<p>Med and law students can apply solely on their own financial need without using their parents’ income as a basis for need. Some schools ask for parents to submit as well but it does not hurt the student from what we have been able to determine.</p>
<p>(Really only speaking about schools where my D submitted forms.) </p>
<p>All schools required parents info for anything other than pure merit scholarships and Fed loans. Most required substantial documentation in addition to FAFSA. The more generous institutional aid schools required far more data. </p>
<p>Speaking generally …
IMO, there are very few med schools that provide much institutional aid, or even institutionally administered aid. Need-based or merit. Many students have found that their aid package, even with their own 0 EFC and their parents’ poverty level income and assets, consists solely of loans. </p>
<p>I would search the recent posts by ksmi117 on sdn. She comes from a high EFC family and has been accepted to many fine schools. She has been uniformly disappointed in her packages (WashU and JHU for 2) EXCEPT for her merit aid packages at Tulane and LSU-Shreveport.</p>
<p>On the other hand the low efc kids at HMS are uniformly very happy with their awards. </p>
<p>One very confusing thing for the sdn kids is that they see that FAFSA zero EFC and think that means something. It means nothing. Parental income and assets will determine their institutionally provided need-based FA. Then they see “all loans” or even a huge gap (not enough loans to pay COA) and flip out. There is a big disconnect going on right now between what they expected and what they are getting.</p>
<p>Don’t let it happen to you. You are wise to be asking these questions now.</p>
<p>Oh, and btw . Every school my D applied to requires the student to have loans (or pay cash for the loan portion). Search for the “unit loan” amount. You could be a ward of the state and you’d still have to take out $80K (to $100K) in loans. And that is at the generous schools.</p>
<p>Like Curm said, my DDs school will require parent info every year if she wants any scholarships, so their school mission choice was need based aid. I have not heard what the parent EFC limits are for that aid and we have not seen DDs package yet</p>
<p>Okay, I am feeling even more dim than usual today. Walk me through this please. Both student and parent (it’s just me) fill out FAFSA and whatever other lovely forms they would like me to. They then offer the package, which consists mostly of loans, which are to be taken out in the students name, correct? Let’s assume, or let’s just cut to the chase, I have no assets, and VERY low income. Would her package consist of institutional aid in addition to her loans, or does this pretty much vary from school to school. If it does, is there a majic book that will tell me this? When you say they will have a gap in the package, I’m confused there. Isn’t the loan amount that is available to med school students pretty much enough to cover schools?</p>
<p>Clueless in Georgia (aka GA2012MOM)</p>
<p>*need to figure how many pints of blood I need to sell!</p>
<p>I’ll try to recall exactly how this was explained to us when we interviewed at my school. It goes something like this:</p>
<p>1) First, the medical school determines how much it will cost a student to attend their institution. This cost will include tuition and fees as well as estimates for room and board, books, equipment, testing fees, and personal expenses. The cost of attendence may vary depending on the year of school - for example, typically speaking, costs for third-year medical schools are greater than those of first year medical schools because of, among other things, the increased length of the school year.</p>
<p>2) Then, the medical school must determine how much the student and parents should contribute to the student’s cost to attend, ie. the expected family contributions (EFC). The school will demand:</p>
<ul>
<li>student information regarding assets/income/expenses: usually through FAFSA and tax documents</li>
<li>parent information regarding assets/income/expenses: this may be through FAFSA or some other kind of service like NeedAccess, depending on the school, in addition to tax documents</li>
</ul>
<p>I believe that this formula used to calculate EFC is strictly determined by some federal regulatory agency. The financial aid office has no power to modify the EFC. Your EFC will be the same no matter what medical school you attend. It may change year-to-year depending on the student’s and parents’ financial status.</p>
<p>3) Once the school has determined both the cost of attending and the contribution from both students, it will subtract the contributions from the cost of attending. This is the amount of aid that the school must provide the student. This aid may come as merit scholarship, need-based aid, subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, etc. Typically, the total available aid exceeds the amount of aid that is strictly required - this is because many students aren’t able to actually pay their EFC.</p>
<p>4) Now, the student must decide which forms of aid to accept. Obviously, to minimize loans, students should preferentially take free money (ie. gifts, scholarships, grants) over federally subsidized loans over federally non-subsidized loans over private loans.</p>
<p>This only applies to American citizens. I’m not sure how it works for green card holders or Canadians.</p>
<p>Reading this over, it still sounds kinda confusing, so I’ll make another post using some example numbers.</p>
<p>Okay, GA2012MOM, congratulations! Your DD’s going to enter the University of Podunkstown Super-Fabulous School of Medicine (UPSFSOM) Class of 2014! 
But how much will it cost to go there? And how much will your DD have to borrow? I’ll try to walk you through some (grossly over-) simplified math.</p>
<p>1) UPSFSOM determines that the cost to attend during the 2010-2011 year as a MS1 is the following:</p>
<p>tuition and fees: $30000
room and board: $15000
books and equipment: $1500
personal expenses: $8000
health/dental insurance: $2500</p>
<p>So the total cost to attend will be $57000.</p>
<p>2) Now, the school needs to calculate how much you and your DD should contribute towards her medical education. The two of you are happy to submit copies of your 2009 W2’s and 1040’s along with FAFSA and your school’s institutional application for financial aid. Let’s say that after everything’s said and done, her EFC is $15000.</p>
<p>3) The school does some simple math (57000 - 15000) and determines that your DD is eligible for $42000 in aid. </p>
<p>The school then hemms and hawws for a bit and decides to come up with the following merit aid for your DD:</p>
<p>UPSFSOM Chairman Scholarship: $5000
John Podunks Endowed Chair Scholarship: $5000</p>
<p>Next, the school decides to offer your daughter a loan directly from UPSFSOM. It’s $13000, with 5% interest that begins accumulating upon completion of residency.</p>
<p>The school also offers a package of federal loans. </p>
<p>Stafford subsidized loan: $8500 (6.8% interest, with the federal gov’t making interest payments until graduation)
Stafford unsubsized loan: $5500 (6.8% interest)
Perkins loan: $5000 (5% interest, with the federal gov’t making interest payments until graduation)</p>
<p>Now, your school adds up the total value of its aid package to your DD (5000 + 5000 + 13000 + 8500 + 5500 + 5000 = 42000). And look at that! It’s exactly equal to your DD’s need of $42000! That’s great. :)</p>
<p>However, since UPSFSOM is aware that your DD may not actually have $15000 in cash to pay her EFC, the school also offers another $15000 in unsubsidized Stafford loans.</p>
<p>4) At this point, your DD has to decide what money she will accept. Of course, she’ll take the scholarship money ($10000)! She’ll take the UPSFSOM ($13000) and Perkins ($5000) loans - those have the lowest interest rate and she won’t have to pay interest for a while. And she’ll take the subsidized Stafford ($8500) loans - after all, the government is paying the interest while she’s in school. So now she’s secured $36500 (10000 + 13000 + 5000 + 8500 = 36500) towards her first year of education and now needs to come up with another $20500 (57000 - 36500 = 20500).</p>
<p>But wait! Your DD looks a little closer at the school’s cost to attend, and she says: “Hey, I’m still covered by my mom’s health/dental plan, so why should I pay for that? Strike off that $2500! And looking at this personal expense column… I don’t think I’m going to spend $8000 over 9 months in a place like Podunkstown! So let’s drop another $2000 from the amount I still need to get.” So now your DD needs to come up with another $16000 instead of $20500.</p>
<p>Now you step in, and you say to your DD: “DD, my dear aunt Bertha recently passed away and left me a small inheritance. Of that money, I can give you $6000 towards this year’s education.” So now your DD needs to come up with $10000 instead of $16000.</p>
<p>Finally, your DD has exhausted the well of family resources and decided that she will have to borrow to make up the difference. So out of the total $20500 in unsubsidized Stafford loans the school has made available to your DD, she takes only $10000.</p>
<p>===============================================</p>
<p>And that’s more or less how it all goes, at least as I understand it. It goes without saying that this is based on my experience with financial aid and should not be construed as definitive or applicable to all schools in all situations.</p>
<p>One possible variation to this scenario is that it assumes your DD has not maxed out her limit on Stafford loans. If she did that as an undergraduate or will exceed the limit sometime during medical school, she likely will have to take out Grad Plus loans instead, which are not as favorable to the student as Stafford or Perkins loans.</p>
<p>Thanks Shades! I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of this school, is it top tier?? :)</p>
<p>Okay, I’m getting it a bit now, but can we revise the EFC to $0. 
Can you give me an example of how that might work out?</p>
<p>The amount of need the school would cover must be revised upwards (in my example, it would go from $42000 to $57000). While your DD might be eligible for more scholarship money from her medical school, I don’t think it’s a good idea to expect scholarship money because medical schools aren’t as generous as undergraduate colleges. The most likely scenario is that your DD would simply be offered more loans. They might be from the school, the Perkins program, the unsubsidized Stafford loan program, or from another source.</p>
<p>Thanks, loans are okay. I was getting all worked up over the possible gapping. My worst nightmare would be her having acceptance in hand and then me having to come up with more than my yearly income.</p>
<p>That’s almost impossible, given how easy it is for most American citizens to borrow money for medical school. The dangerous thing is the ease - just another signature and you can have another $10000 almost right away. My school has apocryphal tales of people borrowing money as if it didn’t have to be paid back and using it to buy stupid things like a used BMW or a dozen $1000+ designer handbags.</p>
<p>The problem could come in with…let’s say a $65,000 COA school. There is only $40,500 in Fed Stafford loans available /year. If the student fills out the FAFSA they can get those. But where does the other $24.5K come from? Sometimes there are institutional funds to fill the gap. Sometimes on sdn? Not. That’s where I see the scrambling start. Grad Plus and private loans are both credit-based.</p>
<p>That is what I am concerned about. How do I know what schools are notorius for leaving an EFC of $0 kid with a $24,000 gap? I know about SDN, but glancing around, I really haven’t had luck finding info like this. Do I just search in the specific school threads? I just don’t want to have D waste the app. fee and the time if a school is known for sucky FA, say like NYU for UG.</p>
<p>LOL at the used BMW and $1000 bags! It’s not in her, she grew up having to be thrifty and knows how to smell a bargain. I’m just thankful she will graduate UG with no debt. </p>
<p>I’m quite tired of all this stress, just not sure my Retin-A is strong enough to ward off the new wrinkles that are to come over this! :(</p>
<p>Curm:</p>
<p>Thanks for filling things in. I don’t know anything about the Grad Plus loans, since I haven’t had to take any. I’m under the impression, though, that you can’t run out of Grad Plus money because you can borrow up to the full cost of attendance minus any other financial aid.</p>
<p>I admit that I have no idea what to tell someone who needs Grad Plus loans and has bad credit.</p>
<p>GA2012MOM:</p>
<p>As I understand things, unlike undergrad, medical schools don’t leave students with gaps - your DD will be offered loans of some sort. Most students pay the majority of their expenses with loans, which are almost always through programs like Perkins, Stafford, or Grad Plus. I’m finding it hard to picture any scenario in which your DD will be forced to go from bank to bank to try and scrape together a private loan.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you could fairly judge which schools give out more scholarships than others. There isn’t any good central clearinghouse to get that information. Scholarships in medical school are also highly variable from student to student, so even if such information existed, it would be hard to know what it would mean for your DD.</p>
<p>Medical school admissions are competitive enough that your DD shouldn’t make decisions on which schools to apply to based on some rumor that some school is “terrible” or “great” with the free money. She should apply as broadly as necessary. Only upon receiving admission should money come into the picture.</p>
<p>"How do I know what schools are notorius for leaving an EFC of $0 kid with a $24,000 gap? "</p>
<p>My kid has an efc of 1800. This is only meaningful from the standpoint of getting stafford loans of up to 40500 which is pretty much a given. From the standpoint of most medical schools, parental income is considered, not the 1800 or 0 efc that fafsa generates.</p>
<p>DocT: Am I understanding correctly that your kid’s EFC of 1800 came to be after she filed a FAFSA with your income as well? In other words, isn’t the parent’s income factored into the FAFSA for medical school, resulting very likely in a higher EFC? </p>
<p>(And does anyone know why a grad student is considered to be independent but a med student is not - or is it just the med school gods that dictate that rule?)</p>
<p>I’m probably not the best person to answer this question because financial aid forms are consistently the things that every year make me question whether I’m intelligent enough to go to medical school, but here goes: </p>
<p>The FAFSA itself doesn’t look at parent income to come up with an EFC for the student because we’re considered independent students for the purposes of federal financial aid. Where the parents’ incomes come into play is for aid needed above what can be loaned through the federal programs as well as for institutional aid. Some schools look at the parent section of the FAFSA for this information, and some schools need additional financial aid forms (there are a few different ones floating around out there).</p>
<p>I’m not sure it’s that we don’t qualify as independent students, because we do, at least in the federal government’s eyes. I think it’s because most other graduate-level programs don’t cost as much as medical school, and so it’s not as likely that you’ll max out the amount available each year in federal loans. As far as I know, law students often face the same conundrum.</p>
<p>ginnyvere, you are correct.
Med students are grad students for FAFSA purposes and are independent. For institutional purposes they are NOT independent regardless of the situation on the ground.</p>
<p>Nearly all med students would have $0 EFC as they are all going to be independent based on having a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>By requiring parent info, the schools are choosing to give need based aid to the student’s whose parents also have a lower EFC.</p>