<p>Would anyone be able to enlighten me as to how colleges and grad schools view the EFC when one student is 22 and starting law school and one is 18 starting college. For example, when my son started college our EFC was almost the cost of attendance of his college so we weren't elibible for much. Now that daughter will be starting college soon and son law school and our financial situation hasn't changed in the last four years, I expect our EFC to be roughly the same yet COA will now be over 100K per year between the two schools. </p>
<p>So, do 22 year old dependent grad students get financial aid or are they simply eligible for loans?</p>
<p>Will these schools split our EFC between them and cover the rest with some financial aid package?</p>
<p>Hi, not many will, but some do. My son was starting grad school at 22 and was considered independent for his fafsa, but he was still on our taxes as a dependent and he lived home so we were supporting him over 50%. H e had mainly loans and a small grant.
FA varied for my girls in college, but only a handful considered him, mostly fafsa only schools. I remember Marist, St. Joseph, and I think UConn (not sure) For a while, I saved the emails, yes and no, because I had to write or call to find out. There was a difinite difference in their packages, you could tell the EFC was based on 3 and not 2. </p>
<p>I would think for law school, it might be different. Grad students, unless certain PhD programs, don’t usually qualify for much of anything but loans. Some schools have scholarships but again, it’s very individual.</p>
<p>Law school is different - many of them use their own reporting form for need-based aid (NeedAccess), which corresponds to the Profile. I don’t know about need-based grants, but we were surprised to learn that many law schools have generous merit-based scholarships, even schools that offer little or no merit aid for undergrad. [Top</a> Law Schools](<a href=“http://www.top-law-schools.com/]Top”>http://www.top-law-schools.com/) is a helpful general resource.</p>
<p>Isn’t the assumption that once graduated the student is “on his own” and responsible for his own education costs? </p>
<p>I think the FA system is set up to assume that parents aren’t expected to pay for grad/law school - and if parents choose to do so, then that’s their decision. That said, some med schools ask for parent info to determine who to award some need-based grants.</p>
<p>For grad school, most aid is merit-based and loans. For law school, I think most aid is loans, but some have some merit.</p>
<p>Federally subsidized loans for grad and professional school are ending for the next school year. If a person is eligible, they should max out their loans this year, and save their cash for next year.</p>
<p>*Federally subsidized loans for grad and professional school are ending for the next school year. If a person is eligible, they should max out their loans this year, and save their cash for next year. *</p>
<p>Is that true? How are kids supposed to pay for med school?</p>
<p>^^^ Yes, can someone please confirm - kelsmom or one of our other kind experts in this area? Have just done a quick search on finaid.org and the Dept. of Education site and can’t find anything regarding this. Big news, if true.</p>
<p>So the loans are there, but the interest will add up while in school if this is passed.
My son had many unsubsidized loans in college and I was able to pay the interest for him until he graduated, but if a student has a lot of loans, that can really add up.</p>
<p>I found about 3 or 4 colleges we were looking at including grad school “if” the student was still home or you were providing a good portion of their upkeep. PhD programs were not counted or if the student was working and going to school at night, things like that.</p>
<p>Subsidized loans are still “on” at this point, but yes … there is talk of eliminating subsidies for grad students, though. Actually, there has been talk for quite some time about eliminating all loan subsidies. The move is to one loan (unsub), one grant (Pell), one campus based program (work study). That is just “talk” now, though. In financial aid, you don’t know what will change until it changes (and sometimes you find out that it already changed!).</p>
<p>The assumption is that the Republicans in Congress are going to insist in including all of Obama’s proposed cuts, plus billions more of their own. Therefore, if Obama proposes a cut, it will almost definitely happen.</p>
<p>The cut would be to eliminate the subsidy for grad and professional students. That will mean higher interest rates, plus the interest will start to acrue a month after the loan is taken out. The interest does not have to be paid right away while in school, but it will add to the loan. As a result, if the interest subsidy disappears, the loans should be taken out as late as possible in grad and professional school.</p>
<p>Obama’s priority is to maintain the Pell grants for two semesters per year. The demand for these grants have multiplied, because of decreased incomes and more people in college, which has resulted in billions of more expense per year for the Feds. Many Repubs would like to cut the Pells.</p>
<p>I’m guessing that many colleges and universities will start to offer their own subsidized loans for grad and professional students to make up the difference. Otherwise, many will see decreased enrollments.</p>