one kid in grad school and one undergrad

Paying for College
1

<p>If you are helping with grad school does this effect your EFC for your undergrad child</p>

2

<p>Question #67 on the FAFSA is:</p>

<p>"How many people in your parents' household will be college students in 2008-2009?"</p>

<p>If your answer is 2, the FAFSA formulas will take into account the fact that you have more than one student in college at the same time. The fact that one is a grad student and the other an undergrad should not make a difference.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if your grad student is no longer a "member of your household" (e.g. because they're more than 23 years old,) FAFSA will no longer consider the older sibling in computing the younger's EFC.</p>

<p>This is of course offset by the fact that the older sibling's probably has a lower EFC as an independent student than they would as a dependent student.</p>

3

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<p>As long as the grad student is a "member of your household", the age doesn't matter. Being a member of the household usually means that the child is receiving more than 1/2 of their support from you, you declare them on your taxes, and their "permanent address" is yours.</p>

<p>And just an FYI...EFC for independent grad students has practically no meaning. There are not any "need blind...meets full need" grad schools out there. DS has an EFC of $0, and received only a stafford loan as need based aid. Most grad students who receive aid, get this based on their merit in their field in the form of scholarships, assistantships and grants from the school. There is not much federal money out there (like the Pell grant) for grad students.</p>

4

<p>I stand corrected. I missed the "or" at the end of requrement (a) in the FAFSA Parents' Household Size Worksheet:</p>

<p>Your parents' other children [are members of your household] if:
a) Your parents will provide more than half of their support from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009 or
b) These children can answer "No" to every question in Step 3 (Dependency Status)</p>

<p>"Or" vs. "And" makes a big difference! Sorry for the wrong info.</p>

5

<p>I found that it depends on the UG school- when my D2 was applying I asked several finaid depts how they would handle older D in grad school. UCs would include her, UVA would not, so I suggest asking, but do know that some schools will adjust your EFC.</p>

<p>Also, a grad student (not professional, but grad) would be lucky to get loans, work study, RA/TA stipend, tuition remission, maybe the occasional merit award, there are no grants from the govt. SO, an EFC of $0 for a grad student does not mean great aid- they still need to earn the best package their university offers</p>

6

<p>If your main concern is how it would effect the undergrads EFC, usually through fafsa, you would have 2 students in school (if the over 1/2 criteria was in place) Your efc for the undergrad would be less...whether the college thought their private aid should be based on 2 students, as somemom said, you should ask them. I don't understand why if fafsa says you have 2 children in school, the college would say "no".</p>

7

<p>For FAFSA based guaranteed aid which comes down to the PELL and subsidized Stafford, it will make a difference. But even schools that use FAFSA only, interpret certain situation their own way when it comes to their own money. This is something a lot of folks don't get. Colleges have limited funds to dispense and once they have distributed the federal goodies, they need to decide where to direct their funds, and they cand do anything they want in making those decisions. They do not even have to be consistent or fair.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the help. I was trying to figure out if our undergrad might qualify for more aid and thereby free up some of our funds to help grad student. I feel as if we will be in debt forever</p>

9

<p>BTW= the definition of dependent for FAFSA is different than for your tax return, but though FAFSA says a grad student is independent, you can still claim them as a student in college; we have been "verified" with no issue doing this, merely need to show the school enrolment of the grad student</p>