Are you pregnant? That might be a reason for two students just graduated from high school to have gotten married.
It seems you are trying to pull a fast one on the school. Where are you living in summer and how will you support yourselves? If you are not self supporting otherwise, you can hardly expect the school to pay for all your attendance independent of your parents. You can decline your offer and try a new round of applications with your independent status but if you are not really self supporting, I don’t know how that will go over with institutional financial aid anywhere.
I agree with BrownParent. If you are truly independent with no support from anyone else, you would need to have salaries to support this. Perhaps schools looking at institutional need based aid consider this when reviewing the files of married students. At the very least, I would suspect that you will be selected for verification and will be expected to provide the data to support all of this.
Also, not sure, but wouldn’t you and your husband need to provide enrollment verification for the other’s college? If so, there is the question about being married and planning to live 3000 miles apart for four years. It might appear that your marriage was solely for financial aid gain.
Did either you or your husband qualify for institutional need based aid as unmarried, dependent for financial aid students? I’m guessing not…so you came up with this plan.
Certainly folks marry for any number of reasons. But a marriage solely for financial aid purposes will likely be scrutinized, living 3000 miles apart makes one wonder the reason for your marriage at all…if it wasn’t for financial aid gain.
I do wonder why you accepted this school if your parents were not helping you and how you could have afforded it. You need to get ready for the upcoming application season or if you are in a state that has public U’s with spring enrollment that you could afford.
Then wait to see what Claremont McKenna says.
Did your husband also file new financial aid documentation with Bowdoin?
Where are you and your H living now? In your own apt? Are you living separately?
We qualify for about $40k each from each of our schools in institutional aid already.
We live together and have lived together since last summer.
The net net is this; how much are your parents willing to pay for you and how much are your in laws willing to pay for your husband. The only real thing that your independent status is going to do for you is give you pell ( If you are eligible) and increase the amount of student loans that each of you can borrow by 4k.
Are there already loan in either you or your husband’so financial aid packages? This also may not be a good thing because you wil still be a young married couple carting 100k in student loan debt combined
Even if you get Pell, I really don’t think that your financial aid package is going to change by much. I am willing to be that the only thing that will happen is that they will simply rebucket the money that you are currently receiving and increase your loan.
the current direct cost to attend Claremont is $63, 195 per year (this does not include transportation, books and misc costs like laundry, shampoo and entertainment)
You state you have 40k in institutional aid. this leaves your parents with an EFC of ~23k that they would have to pay in direct cost. Your transportation, books and misc will be covered by your summer earnings from work (which CMC would have already communicated to you by telling you your student contribution)
for kicks and giggles lets say you now have a 0 federal EFC and CMC met your need without loans and you are not a CA resident (those familiar with Calgrants can chime in as to whether her independent status now makes her eligible for Calgrants if she is a resident)
This will make you Eligible for $5775 in pell. Because you would be entitled to this money, what is most likely going to happen is that CMC will reduce their institutional aid by $5775. SInce CMC also uses the CSS profile, your parent’s EFC is not likely going to change and your student contribution will most likely not change.
Your parents part will still be 23k, you as an independent student will be able to borrow $9500 as a freshman (all of it will be unsubsidized (because you will not have a financial need). If you borrow this money, then your parents will have to pay ~14k. If they are unwilling to pay or borrow this amount freshman year, the school is still going to be unaffordable.
do you live independently in a place where you two pay the utilities, rent, insurance, food, and all other costs? Do you have a job that supports that?
It sounds like your boyfriend is OK with his dependent for aid status because HIS parents will pay his remaining costs.
Regardless of how this turns out…who will pay your remaining cost…because even with aid for tuition, fees, room and board, you will still have personal expenses, books, transportation…and some schools also require a student contribution.
At this point, you have submitted your appeal.
I would strongly suggest that your spouse resubmit HIS forms as “married” to Bowdoin…so that your story will be consistent.
Thanks everyone for your responses!!
I agree, my husband is going to submit his appeal on Monday.
For an update on the situation:
I spoke to CMC and they said I would not need to include my parents on the CSS Profile. Rather, I need to submit their tax returns directly to the office as well as supply asset information.
CMC has also asked me to provide a detailed Financial Statement, outlining all of my expenses for 2014.
They probably want to see if you were totally self sufficient and received no help from your parents and that they did not include you as a dependent on your taxes. They will want to know how you kept a roof over your head, paid bills and ate day to day
Just send them everything they ask for…and see what happens.
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We live together and have lived together since last summer.
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Curious as to why a young couple intending to marry soon would apply to universities on opposite coasts. Why didn’t you make sure that you would be attending the same school? For one thing, you could save on housing.
Hi everyone!
Here’s an update: I spoke with my advisor today and she said what @sybbie719 predicted, with the university adjusting institutional aid to match the Pell Grant, meaning I simply qualify for more loans now.
Of course, this is not good news, and Richmond is completely out of my reach. If I were to transfer to another private school with this independent status, would there be any difference? Or I am limited to state schools?
I appreciate your responses.
You will have to check the policies at the schools where you are applying. They may look at your age and say that you are still dependent especially if you can not demonstrate a a few years of being self sufficient.