<p>My procrastinating son who is graduating from college next week and starting a grad program 2 weeks later just called and said his grad program emailed and said, "where's your tuition payment?" (I have only been asking him every time I talk with him what he was going to do about paying for grad school -- he said, "I'll take out loans" -- not unreasonable, because he is luckily graduating debt free from college thanks to scholarships, in state tuition, and the bank of mom and dad. And his 15 month masters program is decently priced at the state school. It turns out he thought he goes to his orientation June 3 and they explain how to apply for financial aid when he starts that day. OY!)</p>
<p>Sooooo... he has to fill out the FAFSAS form immediately. I only filled one out the year he was going to be a freshman to see if we qualified for any federal loans, and we didn't, so we never filled them out again, so he is starting from scratch and we are scrambling to find his previous tax forms.</p>
<p>QUESTION: We have always claimed him as a dependent. He needs to know if he should file the form with or without our income being considered. We were not planning on being his source of support for graduate school, but helping him somewhat.</p>
<p>There are tax consequences! He is on our health insurance! But it would take us days to get everything together to do a FAFSAS form! I read somewhere, or I made it up, that once he graduates he can fill it out on his own... </p>
<p>Can someone point me in the right direction? THAN YOU! I will be busy googling and check back soon.</p>
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<p>Your son will get to a series of questions. One of them is “do you have a bachelors degree?”. He will answer YES. By doing so, he will be an independent student for FINANCIAL AID purposes… and will only provide HIS OWN financial information (unless he’s married…if so, he would include his spouse).</p>
<p>Thanks. I just spoke with him AGAIN, and he said he already completed and submitted the form that covers him through the financial aid year that ends around July 1 (that was why it was an emergency, because his program starts June 3). Not having his bachelor’s yet, he couldn’t answer “yes” I think was the problem.</p>
<p>Since it turns out he will be submitting another form for the rest of the program to cover everything other than the summer term classes, even if he screwed up and doesn’t get the federal loans for the one semester, he can do the form properly for September and onwards. This month we found out (between the two of us, mom and dad) we need two implants, 4 crowns, one car today got a new something called a charcoal canister and serpentine belt, we signed on for college advisor help for s2 with special needs… what’s another semester of tuition <;p</p>
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<p>He needs to talk to HIS grad school. The 2010-2011 FAFSA (the one your son has already completed) might NOT give him access to any loans for the summer term. He needs to find out.</p>
<p>In any event…he should complete the 2011-2012 FAFSA as soon as possible. It won’t take him too long to do since he will only be entering his information. Really…if he has his tax returns and access to his bank accounts online (for asset balances) he should be able to complete and submit this quickly.</p>
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<li>Thanks for some immediate replies!</li>
<li> It didn’t dawn on me that they would EVER consider students under 65 years old “independent” of their parents’ income 
so I was panicked to think we had to get all our parental finances together; great relief to not have to.</li>
<li> I was happy to read the actual IRS/Higher Ed definitions of dependent and independent student and to see that we can declare him as a dependent AND he can be an independent student at the same time, through the miracle of legal definitions.</li>
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<p>Thanks again!</p>