Half of FAFSA academic year for undergrad & grad school?!

Hi all,

I have a few questions regarding FAFSA as a current undergrad (graduating Fall 18’). I’m currently planning to attend grad school for a MST in the Spring of 18’. My questions are:

  1. I will be using half of my FAFSA $$ for the 18-19 academic year but will graduate in Fall of 18', with Spring of 19' still leftover. Can I use half of that year, or will FAFSA be kind enough to award me with the other half, or simply revoke half of the other year?
  2. Yes, I know that there are loans I can obtain, but in case we get to that point, are there any recommendations you can give me (as I don't want to attain over 20k debt)?

Thank you!

What FAFSA money are you talking about?

If you are talking about the Pell Grant…you won’t be receiving it as a grad student.

If you qualify for Pell, you will receive the fall amount in the fall. Once you are a grad student, you arent’t eligible for Pell, so the spring amount won’t be available for you. You will be eligible to borrow the graduate level student loans.

If it looks like the grad loans won’t be enough, and you haven’t taken any student loans yet, you can borrow the junior year amount this semester and stick it in the bank, and next fall you can borrow the first half of the senior year amount and stick that in the bank too. This would come to 11,250 which you could add on to the grad loans to help with costs.