<p>My son will be going into his 5th year undergraduate next year for one semester (fall). We applied for Financial Aid with him being a dependent and also including our (his parents information) on the FASFA. He is thinking now about continuing on to graduate school at the same school for the spring semester. He will have to pay for graduate school on his own. How does he handle this now? Does he file another FASFA? The FASFA we filed already is for the 2014-2015 school year and does not allow us to show it as one semester undergraduate and being our dependent and one semester graduate and him being independent. Has anyone had this situation before?</p>
<p>If your son is continuing at the same college, perhaps he can ask this question of the financial aid office there. </p>
<p>My guess is he will need to do,something to that FAFSA. </p>
<p>But really, grad school aid is based on academic merit and the school’s desire to have you in their cohort of students. As a grad student, your son will be eligible for additional Direct Loan money, as well as a student Plus loan.</p>
<p>As a grad student your son would be considered independent, if your son is credit worthy, he will be able to borrow the entire cost of grad school as a direct loan from the federal government. He will most likely have a 0 EFC (which is not unusual).</p>
<p>He should definitely contact the aid office, but not until after the fall semester starts. They may have to “lock” his aid to keep it from backing off when the grad FAFSA is received, and they will have to manually package his aid for spring. It’s a bit of a pain for the aid office, and it really helps when students let them know they update his FAFSA to answer that he is a graduate student before they do so. If they are like schools where I have worked, they have someone who will watch for it & make sure everything processes smoothly.</p>
<p>He should talk to financial aid office for sure. But he should also talk to his department head to find out what is available. Many master’s student have to pay their own way and PhD students are usually funded right away. But some universities have some funding available for master’s students, he may be offered a TA or RA position or a department award that could reduce his need to borrow tuition. </p>