Parents of College Seniors heading to Grad School

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi everyone,<br>
Our oldest son is graduating college in May. He plans on attending grad school in the fall 2010 (MA, not Phd). He's been accepted into two programs so far and he's still waiting to hear from a few more. I have a few questions regarding financial aid.</p>

<p>We didn't qualify for need based aid for his undergraduate schooling. Our income is too high. Today, for the heck of it, I decided to check out some info on the FAFSA form.
After answering a series of 4 or 5 questions regarding dependency, it appears that he is now considered Independent (based on answering YES to the question, Will you be enrolled in a Master's program for 2010?).</p>

<p>I'm very confused. According to FAFSA, now he doesn't have to include parental information.
Does this mean that we should not declare him as a dependent on our tax returns? </p>

<p>This is new territory for us. </p>

<p>I guess it's time to call the accountant for some answers.</p>

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<p>I suggest you post this on the
FA forum as well, and hopefully swimcatsmom will respond. She is THE FA guru on CC!</p>

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<p>Thanks…</p>

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<p>Yes, for grad school he is independent. If it is a professional degree, then the school may require your info in order for him to be eligible for school based grants, if there are any. In my experience, there is not much grant aid at the masters level.</p>

<p>Here is the scoop you need to know:</p>

<p>File the FAFSA immediately, get it in by the priority deadline to be eligible for anything they may offer. At the very least he will get subsidized stafford loans for part of his need.</p>

<p>My DDs FAFSA was filed in January as we have been doing forms for nearly 10 years now and are in the habit. She got her masters at a regional public master’s university and was the FIRST person in her dept EVER (as far as any one there could recall) to be offered a $7500 work study. Why? Because she filed before the priority deadline; most kids on their own wait until the pick a school, expect only loans and file in May-June, after the work study funds are all gone. DD was able to work in the research lab of her PI, doing research she would have needed to do anyway, but she was paid for it!! This was perfect for her.</p>

<p>The other thing to check into is TA/RA & tuition remission. By the spring term of the 1st year, DD was a TA, got seriously reduced tuition AND got paid for her TA time (instead of the work study).</p>

<p>He can also apply to be a dorm resident assistant to save housing money.</p>

<p>Your accountant will not know this stuff, but independent for FAFSA has nothing to do with dependency on the tax return, so if he has a Bachelor’s degree, he IS independent for FAFSA. If your accountant determines he is eligible to be your dependent, then that is fine, too.</p>

<p>If he gets a TA position, you may lose that, though, as he would essentially be self-supporting (poor & starving, but self supporting) </p>

<p>Feel free to PM me any specific questions as we have been through all this</p>

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<p>Thanks. </p>

<p>I also posted this thread in the Financial Aid section of CC. </p>

<p>PS–Our accountant has 2 kids in college :)</p>

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<p>I am by NO means an authority on graduate school, but don’t the schools often pay the student’s tuition, insurance, travel and give them a stipend to live on? I have a D who is a first year grad student who gets all those things and the stipend is quite generous. We did not qualify for need based aid during her undergraduate years. She is in a major that is a humanity/social science and teaches two entry level classes a semester. Maybe it depends on your major?</p>

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<p>MidwestParent, yes, it depends on the major. Many science and social science graduate students are funded through some combination of research/teaching assistanships. It is harder for non-science majors to find funding.</p>

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<p>student is considered independent for FinAid after attaining first bachelor’s degree.They may still be dependent on parents for tax purposes.
PhD’s are generally supported by their institutions (tuition remission,fellowship,TA’s etc) MA’s are not usually,unless the MA is awarded on the way to the PhD (one admittance cycle)
In the Humanities, at least</p>

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<p>Yes, dependent for FAFSA and dependent for IRS can be two different things for same student/family.</p>

<p>Student automatically is independent for FAFSA if completed bachelors degree already.
Student can be either independent or dependent for IRS return based on the criteria that IRS gives…age, student status, income, etc. Turbotax helps our family through it thankfully.</p>

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<p>OK–I decided to fill out the FAFSA. I submitted it online this morning.
He’s (we) are not planning on taking out loans—hoping for (but not holding our breath) a grant or something. </p>

<p>We’re trying our best to get our kids through their education debt free. It’s quite a sacrifice but we don’t want to them start out their adult lives with massive loans. Being self-employed, we don’t want ourselves to be burdened with massive loans either. It’s not like we have retirement pensions coming in our future.</p>

<p>Two more years to get the younger one through his undergrad (he is not planning on going to grad school) and about 3 semesters to get the oldest one through his Master’s program.
Oh goodness, hopefully in 2 years we’ll see the light at the end of the long and expensive college tuition tunnel.</p>

<p>midwestparent: your daughter is very fortunate to have been offered such a wonderful financial package. Phd programs are often fully funded. MA programs (especially in the social sciences) rarely offer merit aid.</p>

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<p>Just wanted to thank the OP for starting this very useful thread with info that I had no idea about. We’re still ~2 years away from grad school for our oldest, but I’ve been wondering how we’d handle the finances. We’re committed to funding our kids’ undergraduate educations, but have not yet decided about grad school should it occur. My sibs and I all went to graduate school, although in math-y/CS-y type fields that always had teaching assistantships, so it didn’t cost our parents anything. That’s great news about the kids being independent for FAFSA after getting a bachelor’s degree.</p>

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<p>to all parents concerned about how to pay for grad school- some general guidelines:
MOST PHD programs offer stipends and do not charge for the cost of tuition for grad school - with the understanding that the grad student WILL have some teaching TA responsibilites as well as work doing research for their graduate advisor.
That is NOT the case for most MASTERS programs, which generally charge for tuition, and if financial aid is offered, it is mostly in the form of LOANS.</p>

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<p>Like many of you, we funded our kids to get UG degrees, debt-free. We have chosen to allow them to self-fund, via loans, grants, stipends, TA, RA, etc., anything they can, their grad schools.</p>

<p>They can take loans and defer them until 6 months after graduation. This gives us a few years to get the younger ones through, then we can decide how much to give the older ones to pay off some loans.</p>

<p>But it also gives them serious skin in the game, encourages them at every turn to make cost conscious decisions, and makes them 100% owners of the choices they make. We have not told them we will be giving them something at the end. We gave them each a nice check at UG graduation and I am sure they think they will get that amount again, but we would like to pay more; however, we would like to have a life for a couple of years, too!!!</p>

<p>So, we have paid for some things along the way- GRE, MCAT, grad apps, plane tickets, etc. and we hope life is such that we can give them a nice chunk of cash in a few years, which they can use for loans or just on starting life.</p>

<p>I think the most important thing for kids applying to grad school is the FAFSA the January before matriculation. I was shocked at the kids who did not do that and did not get the $7500 work study my DD got! That is a lot of money to live on when you figure she needed to work in the guy’s lab anyway!</p>

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<p>FYI- there is also another financial aid form known as Need access. [Need</a> Access.org - Home](<a href=“http://www.needaccess.org%5DNeed”>http://www.needaccess.org)
It seems to be primarily for law and medical school- but I did notice that there are a few graduate programs listed such as Columbia U- school of the Arts, UCLA Graduate School of Management and a bunch more.
We are going through financial aid stuff for my kid who is applying to law school. But I am aware that even if FAFSA considers you independent- NEED ACCESS does not. Most law schools won’t consider you independent until you’ve been out of h/h for about 5 years or you’re 30 years old. Exceptions are if you are married. Parents tax info is needed for Need Access form.
We’re going to try to work on tax info and Need Access forms this week-end.
Just shoot me.</p>

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<p>Just one clarification -</p>

<p>Student seeking graduate degrees are automatically independent for FAFSA purposes. Students seeking 2nd bachelors/teacher certification are not (and they no longer qualify for federal grants).</p>

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<p>And, as marny said, students can be independent for FAFSA BUT still be required to give parent #s for institutional aid.</p>

<p>For example, med school, law school, MBA, etc, you can submit the FAFSA as independent and obtain loans, but any grants will only come if your parent info is provided and needaccess is like Profile for grad school!</p>

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<p>We also told our children we would pay for their UG educations but after that they would be on their own. S1 is a first year grad student and “off the payroll”, as his dad likes to say. He is fully funded by his department and has no TA or RA responsibilities for his first year. (And he is frugal enough that he is managing to put a little into a Roth IRA!) I will admit that the gifts we give him now are more generous then they were in the past and we still cover his phone because the extra line is much less expensive than him getting his own plan. S2 is in a five-year combined master’s/bachelor’s program, but the total for his public school education will still be less than S1’s private. The light at the end of the tunnel is dim, but I believe I can see it.</p>

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<p>Somemom: To clarify … if a student has applied to PhD programs but not yet been accepted, are you suggesting that the FAFSA should still be filed now?</p>

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<p>

Yes. My programs encouraged me to do so, because they can sneak in an extra $1500-2000 on top of your stipend through “work-study” for eligible people (really just your TA duties).</p>

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<p>Yes! File in Jan/Feb so you meet that university’s PRIORITY deadline, allow them the most flexibility you can, just like with UG. True most PhDs are fully funded, but even if you just allow your department some flexibility in where the funding comes from you are helping, right?</p>

<p>In DDs case this was a $7500 WS award, to us that was HUGE.</p>